FT MEADE 


4BF 

629 

Copy 1 


L EDITION.—With Dent 


;stions. 


IMPROVEMENT 


'Vi. . ■ 

© ■ 








i 




THE MIND’. 




BY ISAAC WATTS, D.D. 


u Whoever bss the r-tre of instructing others, rosy be ehwged with it&- 
xutucy in bis duty, if this Book ia not recommended,”— D*. Jokmsok. 


NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES <fe CO, 

CINCINNATI? H. W DERBY V CO. 























f 


* 





























































* 






































) 
































% 




p 






f 





















































\ 



























SCHOOL EDITION.—With Denman’s Questions. 


IMPROVEMENT 

y 

OF 

THE MIND. 



BY ISAAC WATTS, D. D. 

> »\ 

• * 

o i --— 

9 

J* 

" Whoever has tne care of instructing others, may be charged wilh defi¬ 
ciency in his duty, if this Book is not recommended,”—D r. John*on. 


NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & CO 

CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY Sr CO. 

1856. 










V 


H-QP 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, 

By A. S. BARNES & CO. 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States fee 
the Southern District of New York. 




CONTENTS. 


PART I. 

Pag a. 

The Introduction,. 5 

Chap. I.—General Rules for the Improvement of 

Knowledge,.7 

Chap. II. —Five Methods of Improving, described, 
and compared; viz. Observation, Reading, In¬ 
struction by Lectures, Conversation, and Stu¬ 
dy, with their several Advantages and Defects, 21 
Chap. III.—Of Observation, either by the Senses 

or the Mind,.22 

Chap. IV.—Of Reading and Books, with Direc¬ 
tions relating thereto,.38 

Chap. V.—The Judgment of Books, both Approba¬ 
tion and Censure,.49 

Chap. VI.—Of living Instructions and Lectures, of 

Teachers and Learners,.61 

Chap. VII.—Of learning a Language, particularly 

the Latin,.65 

Chap. VIII.—Of inquiring into the Sense and 
Meaning of apy Writer or Speaker, whether 

human or divine,.73 

Chap. IX.—Of Conversation, and profiting by it, 

and of Persons fit or unfit for free Converse, . 77 

Chap. X.—Of Disputes, and general Rules rela¬ 
ting to them,.92 

Chap. XI.—Of Socratical Disputation, by Ques¬ 
tion and Answer,.103 

Chap. XII.—of Forensic Disputes, in Courts of 

Justice or Public Assemblies,.106 

Chap. XIII. —Of Academic or Scholastic Disputes, 
and the Rules of them, and'how far they may 
bo useful,.109 















IV 


CONTENTS. 


Chap. XIV.—Of Study, or Meditation, and the 
final Determination of Things by our own Judg¬ 
ment, . 118 

Chap. XV.—Of fixing the Attention,.129 

Chap. XVI.—Of enlarging the Capacity of the 

Mind,.133 

Chap. XVII.—Of the Memory, and the Improve¬ 
ment thereof, .150 

Chap. XVIII.—Of determining a Question; several 
Cautions about it; of Reason and Revelation; 
of Argument and Ridicule; of Assent only in 

Proportion to Evidence, &c.171 

Chap. XIX.—Of inquiring into Causes and Effects, 189 
Chap. XX.—Of the Sciences, and their Uses in 
particular Professions,.192 

PART n. 

The Introduction . .221 

Chap. I.—Methods of teaching, and reading Lec- 


Chap. II.—Of an instructive Style,.229 

Chap. III.—Of convincing of Truth, or delivering 

from Error,.. 235 

Chap. IV.—The Use and Abuse of Authority, - . 242 
Chap. V.—Of managing the Prejudices of Men, . 251 
Chap. VI.—Of Instruction by Preaching, . . . 260 

Chap. VII.—Of writing Books for the Public,. .272 

Chap. VIII.—Of writing and reading Controver¬ 
sies, . . . . . 276 













THE 


\ 

IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND. 


PART I. 

DIRECTIONS FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF USEFUL KNOW¬ 
LEDGE. 


INTRODUCTION. 

No man is obliged to learn and know every thing; 
this can neither be sought nor required, for it is utterly 
impossible; yet all persons are under some obligation to 
improve their own understanding; otherwise it will be a 
barren desert, or a forest overgrown with weeds and 
brambles. Universal ignorance or infinite errors will 
overspread the mind which is utterly neglected, and lies 
without any cultivation. 

Skill in the sciences is indeed the business and pro¬ 
fession but of a small part of mankind; but there are 
many others placed in such an exalted rank in the world, 
as allows them much leisure and large opportunities to 
cultivate their reason, and to beautify and enrich their 
minds with various knowledge. Even the lower orders 
of men have particular callings in life, wherein they 
ought to acquire a just degree of skill; and this is not to 
be done well, without thinking and reasoning about them. 

The common duties and benefits of society, which be- 
long to every man living, as we are social creatures, and 
even our native and necessary relations to a family, a 
neighbourhood or government, oblige all persons what- 
1 * 


v 



6 


■introduction. 


soever to use their reasoning powers upon a thousand 
occasions; every hour of life calls for some regular exer¬ 
cise of our judgment, as to time and things, persons and 
actions: without a prudent and discreet determination 
in matters before us, we shall be plunged into perpetual 
errors in our conduct. Now that which should always 
be practised must at some time be learned. 

Besides, every son and daughter of Adam has a most 
important concern in the affairs of the life to come, and 
therefore it is a matter of the highest moment, for every 
one to understand, to judge, and to reason right about 
the things of religion. It is vain for any to say, we have 
no leisure time for it. The daily intervals of time, and 
vacancies from necessary labour, together with the one 
day in seven in the Christian world, allows sufficient 
time for this, if men would but apply themselves to it 
with half so much zeal and diligence as they do to the 
trifles and amusements of this life, and it would turn to 
infinitely better account. 

Thus it appears to be the necessary duty and the in¬ 
terest of every person living, to improve his understand¬ 
ing, to inform his judgment, to treasure up useful know¬ 
ledge, and to acquire the skill of good reasoning, as far 
as his station, capacity, and circumstances furnish him 
with proper means for it. Our mistakes in judgment 
may plunge us into much folly and guilt in practice. 
By acting without thought or reason, we dishonour the 
God that made us reasonable creatures, we often become 
injurious to our neighbours, kindred, or friends, and we 
bring sin and misery upon ourselves; for we are accounta¬ 
ble to God, our judge, for every part of our irregular and 
mistaken conduct, where he hath given us sufficient ad¬ 
vantages to guard against those mistakes. 


GENERAL RULES, &C. 


7 


CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL RULES FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE.* 

Rule 1.—Deeply possess your mind with the vast 
importance of a good judgment, and the rich and inesti¬ 
mable advantage of right reasoning. Review the in¬ 
stances of your own misconduct in life; think seriously 
with yourselves how many follies and sorrows you had 
escaped, and how much guilt and misery you had pre¬ 
vented, if from your early years you had but taken due 
pains to judge aright concerning persons, times, and 
things. This will awaken you with lively vigour to 
address yourselves to the work of improving your reason¬ 
ing powers, and seizing every opportunity and advantage 
for that end. 

II. Consider the weaknesses, frailties, and mistakes of 
human nature in general, which arise from the very con¬ 
stitution of a soul united to an animal body, and sub¬ 
jected to many inconveniences thereby. Consider the 
many additional weaknesses, mistakes, and frailties, 
which are derived from our original apostasy and fall 
from a state of innocence: how much our powers of un¬ 
derstanding are yet more darkened, enfeebled, and im¬ 
posed upon by our senses, our fancies, our unruly pas¬ 
sions, &c. Consider the depth and difficulty of many 
truths, and the flattering appearances of falsehood, 
whence arises an infinite variety of dangers to which 
we are exposed in our judgment of things. Read with 
greediness those authors that treat of the doctrine of 
prejudices, prepossessions, and springs of error, on pur¬ 
pose to make your soul watchful on all sides, that it suf¬ 
fer itself, as far as possible, to be imposed upon, by none 
of them. 

III. A slight view of things so momentous is not suf¬ 
ficient. You should therefore contrive and practise some 

* Though the most of these following Rules are chiefly addressrd 
to those whom their fortune or their station require to addict them¬ 
selves to the peculiar improvement of their minds in greater degrees 
of knowledge, yet every one who has leisure and opportunity to be 
acquainted with such writings as these, may find something among 
them for their own ia' e. 


8 


GENERAL RULES 


proper methods to acquaint yourself wi Jh your own igno¬ 
rance, and to impress your mind with a deep and pain¬ 
ful sense of the low and imperfect degrees of your present 
knowledge, that you may be incited with labour and 
activity to pursue after greater measures. Among others, 
you may find some such methods as these successful. 

1. Take a wide survey now and then of the vast and 
unlimited regions of learning. Let your meditations run 
over the names of all the sciences, with their numerous 
branchings, and innumerable particular themes of know¬ 
ledge; and then reflect how few of them you are ac¬ 
quainted with in any tolerable degree. The most learned 
of mortals will never find occasion to act over again what 
is fabled of Alexander the Great, that when he had con¬ 
quered what was called the eastern world, he wept for 
want of more worlds to conquer. The worlds of science 
are immense and endless. 

2. Think what a numberless variety of questions and 
difficulties there are belonging even to that particular 
science in which you have made the greatest progress, 
and how few of them there are in which you have ar¬ 
rived at a final and undoubted certainty; excepting only 
those questions in the pure and simple mathematics, 
whose theorems are demonstrable, and leave scarce any 
doubt; and yet, even in the pursuit of some few of these, 
mankind have been strangely bewildered. 

3. Spend a few thoughts sometimes on the puzzling 
inquiries concerning vacuums and atoms, the doctrine 
of infinites, indivisibles, and incommensurables m ge¬ 
ometry, wherein there appear some insolvable difficul¬ 
ties: do this on purpose to give you a more sensible im¬ 
pression of the poverty of your understanding, and the 
imperfection of your knowledge. -This will teach you 
what a vain thing it is to fancy that you know all things, 
and will instruct you to think modestly of your present 
attainments, when every dust of the earth, and every 
inch of empty space, surmounts your understanding, and 
triumphs over your presumption. Arithmo had been 
bred up to accounts all his life, and thought himself a 
complete master of numbers. But when he was pushed 
hard to give the square root of the number 2, he tried 


TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE. 


9 


at it, and laboured long in millesimal fractions, till he 
confessed there was no end of the inquiry; and yet he 
learned so much modesty by this perplexing question, 
that he was afraid to say it was an impossible thing. It 
is some good degree of improvement, when we are afraid 
to be positive. 

4. Read the accounts of those vast treasures of know¬ 
ledge which some of the dead have possessed, and some 
of the living do possess. Read and be astonished at the 
almost incredible advances which have been made in 
science. Acquaint yourself with some persons of great 
learning, that by converse among them, and comparing 
yourself with them, you may acquire a mean opinion of 
your own attainments, and may thereby be animated 
with new zeal, to equal them as far as possible, or to ex¬ 
ceed: thus let your diligence be quickened by a generous 
and laudable emulation. If Vanillus had never met 
with Scitorio and Palydes, he had never imagined him¬ 
self a mere novice in philosophy, nor ever set himself to 
study in good earnest. 

Remember this, that if upon some few superficial 
acquirements you value, exalt, and swell yourself, as 
though you were a man of learning already, you are 
thereby building a most unpassable barrier against all 
improvement; you will lie down and indulge idleness, 
and rest yourself contented in the midst of deep and 
shameful ignorance. Multi ad scientiam pervenissent 
si se iliac pervenisse non putassent. 

IV. Presume not too much upon a bright genius, a 
ready wit, and good parts; for this, without labour and 
study, will never make a man of knowledge and wisdom. 
This has been an unhappy temptation to persons of a 
vigorous and gay fancy, to despise learning and study. 
They have been acknowledged to shine in an assembly, 
and sparkle in a discourse on common topics, and thence 
they took it into their heads to abandon reading and 
labour, and grow old in ignorance; but when they had 
lost their vivacity of animal nature and youth, they be¬ 
came stupid and sottish even to contempt and ridicule. 
Lucidus and Scintillo are young men of this stamp; they 
shine in conversation; they spread their native riches 


10 


GENERAL RULES 


before the ignorant; they pride themselves in their own 
lively images of fancy, and imagine themselves wise and 
learned; but they had best avoid the presence of the 
skilful, and the test of reasoning; and I would advise 
them once a day to think forward a little, what a con¬ 
temptible figure they will make in age. 

The witty men sometimes have sense enough to know 
their own foible; and therefore they craftily shun the 
attacks of argument, or boldly pretend to despise and 
renounce them, because they are conscious of their own 
ignorance, and inwardly confess their want of acquaint¬ 
ance with the skill of reasoning. 

V. As you are not to fancy yourself a learned man 
because you are blessed with a ready wit; so neither 
must you imagine that large and laborious reading, and 
a strong memory, can denominate you truly wise. 

What that excellent critic has determined when he 
decided the question, whether wit or study makes the 
best poet, may well be applied to every sort of learning: 

.Ego nec studium sine divile vena, 

Nee rude quid prosit, video, ingenium: alterius sic 
Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice. 

Hot. de Art. Poet. 

Thus made English: 

Concerning poets there has been contest, 

Whether they’re made by art or nature best; 

But if I may presume in this affair, 

Among the rest my judgment to declare, 

No art without a genius will avail, 

And parts without the help of art will fail: 

But both ingredients jointly must unite, 

Or verse will never shine with a transcendent light. 

Oldham. 

It is meditation and studious thought, it is the exer¬ 
cise of your own reason and judgment upon all you read, 
that gives good sense even to the best genius, and affords 
your understanding the truest improvement. A ix>y of 
a strong memory may repeat a whole book of Euclid, 
yet be no geometrician; for he may not be able perhaps 
to demonstrate one single theorem. Memorino has 
learned half the Bible by heart, and is become a living 
concordance, and a speaking index to theological folios, 
and yet he undirstands little of divinity. 



TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE. 


i 


11 

A well furnished library, and a capacious memory, 
are indeed of singular use toward the improvement of 
the mind; but if all your learning be nothing else but a 
mere amassment of what others have written, without 
a due penetration into the meaning, and without a judi¬ 
cious choice and determination of your own sentiments, 
I do not see what title your head has to true learning 
above your shelves. Though you have read philosophy 
and theology, morals and metaphysics in abundance, 
and every other art and science, yet if your memory is 
the only faculty employed, with the neglect of your rea¬ 
soning powers, you can justly claim no higher character 
but that of a good historian of the sciences. 

Here note, many of the foregoing advices are more 
peculiarly proper for those who are conceited of their 
abilities, and are ready to entertain a high opinion of 
themselves. But a modest, humble youth, of a good 
genius, should not suffer himself to be discouraged by 
any of these considerations. They are designed only as 
a spur to diligence, and a guard against vanity and pride. 

VI. Be not so weak as to imagine, that a life of learn¬ 
ing is a life of laziness and ease; dare not give up your¬ 
self to any of the learned professions, unless you are 
resolved to labour hard at study, and can make it your 
delight, and the joy of your life, according to the motto 
of our late Lord Chancellor King; 

.... Labor ipse voluptas. 

It is no idle thing to be a scholar indeed. A man 
much addicted to luxury and pleasure, recreation and 
pastime, should never pretend to devote himself entirely 
to the sciences, unless his soul be so reformed and refined, 
that he can taste all these entertainments eminently in 
his closet, among his books and papers. Sobrino is a 
temperate man, and a philosopher, and he feeds upon 
partridge and pheasant, venison and ragouts, and every 
delicacy, in a growing understanding, and a serene and 
healthy soul, though he dines on a dish of sprouts or 
turnips. Languinos loved his ease, and therefore chose 
to be brought up a scholar; he had much indolence in 
his temper; and as he never cared for study, lie falls 


s 


12 


GENERAL RULES 


under universal contempt in his profession, because he 
has nothing but the gown and the name. 

VII. Let the hope of new discoveries, as well as the 
satisfaction and pleasure of known truths, animate your 
daily industry. Do not think learning in general is ar¬ 
rived at its perfection, or that the knowledge of any par¬ 
ticular subject in any science cannot be improved, mere¬ 
ly because it has lain five hundred or a thousand years 
without improvement. The present age, by the bless¬ 
ing of God on the'ingenuity and diligence of men, has 
brought to light such truths in natural philosophy, and 
such discoveries in the heavens and the earth, as seemed 
to be beyond the reach of man. But may there not be 
Sir Isaac Newtons in every science? You should never 
despair therefore of finding out that which has never yet 
been found, unless you see something in the nature of it 
which renders it unsearchable, and above the reach of 
our faculties. 

Nor should a student in divinity imagine that our age 
is arrived at a full understanding of every thing which 
can be known by the Scriptures. Every age since the 
Reformation hath thrown some further light on difficult 
texts and paragraphs of the Bible, which have been long 
obscured by the early rise of antichrist: and since there 
are at present many difficulties and darknesses hanging 
about certain truths of the Christian religion, and since 
several of these relate to important doctrines, such as 
the origin of sin, the fall of Adam, the person of Christ, 
the blessed Trinity, and decrees of God, &c. which do 
still embarrass the minds of honest and inquiring rea¬ 
ders, and which make work for noisy controversy; it is 
certain there are several things in the Bible yet un¬ 
known, and not sufficiently explained; and it is certain 
that there is some way to solve these difficulties, and to 
reconcile these seeming contradictions. And why may 
not a sincere searcher of truth in the present age, by la¬ 
bour, diligence, study, and prayer, with the best use of 
his reasoning powers, find out the proper solution of 
those knots and perplexities which have hitherto been 
unsolved, and which have afforded matter for angry 
quarrelling? Happy is every man who shall be favoured 


/ 


TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE. f 18 

of Heaven, to give a helping hand towards the intro¬ 
duction of the blessed age of light and love. 

VIII. Do not hover always on the surface of things, 
nor take up suddenly with mere appearances; but pene¬ 
trate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and 
circumstances allow, especially in those things which re¬ 
late to your own profession. Do not indulge yourselves to 
judge of things by the first glimpse, or a short and su¬ 
perficial view of them; for this will fill the mind with 
errors and prejudices, and give it a wrong turn and ill 
habit of thinking, and make much work for retraction. 
Subito is carried away with title pages, so that he ven¬ 
tures to pronounce upon a large octavo at once, and to 
recommend it wonderfully when he has read half the 
preface. Another volume of controversies, of equal size, 
was discarded by him at once, because it pretended to 
treat of the Trinity, and yet he could neither find the 
word essence nor subsistencies in the twelve first pages; 
but Subito changes his opinions of men and books and 
things so often, that nobody regards him. 

As for those sciences, or those parts of knowledge, 
which either your profession, your leisure, your inclina¬ 
tion, or your incapacity, forbid you to pursue with much 
application, or to search far into them, you must be con¬ 
tented with an historical and superficial knowledge of 
them, and not pretend to form any judgment of your 
own on those subjects which you understand very im¬ 
perfectly. 

IX. Once a day, especially in the early years of life 
and study, call yourselves to an account what new ideas, 
what new proposition or truth you have gained, what 
further confirmation of known truths, and what ad¬ 
vances you have made in any part of knowledge; and 
let no day, if possible, pass away without some intellec¬ 
tual gain: such a course, well pursued, must certainly 
advance us in useful knowledge. It is a wise proverb 
among the learned, borrowed from the lips and practice 
of a celebrated painter, Nulla dies sine linea, “ Let no 
day pass without one line at least;” and it was a sacred 
rule among the Pythagoreans, That they should every 
evening thrice run over the actions and affairs of the 

2 


GENERAL RULES 


day, and examine what their conduct had been, what 
they had done, or what they had neglected: and they 
assured their pupils, that by this method they would 
make a noble progress in the path of virtue. 

MijJ ujtvov /&x\xx.oicriv in* op/AXtri 7r(0<rSs^xtrdxi 
Tl(>iv twv ny,igivuiv egyaiv Tgig exxirlov £7rsK6etv. 

Tit) TrctfsSqv; t< S } sgst^xj ti /xoi Seov oux’ jrsXjg-Sij} 

Txvtx <rs T(jf $11*15 a^iTijs £*S $*ierst, 

Nor let soft slumber close your eyes, 

Before you’ve recollected thrice 
The train of action through the day: 

Where have my feet chose out their way’ 

What have I learn’d, where’er I’ve been, 

From all I’ve heard, from all I’ve seen? 

What know I more that’s worth the knowing? 

What have I done that’s worth the doing? 

What have I sought that I should shun? 

What duty have I left undone? 

Or into what new follies run? 

These self-inquiries are the road 
That leads to virtue, and to God. 

I would be glad, among a nation of Christians, to 
find young men heartily engaged in the practice of what 
this heathen writer teaches. 

X. Maintain a constant watch at all times against a 
dogmatical spirit: fix not your assent to any proposition 
in a firm and unalterable manner, till you have some 
firm and unalterable ground for it, and till you have ar¬ 
rived at some clear and sure evidence; till you have 
turned the proposition on all sides, and searched the 
matter through and through, so that you cannot be mis¬ 
taken. And even where you may think you have full 
grounds of assurance, be not too early, nor too frequent, 
in expressing this assurance in too peremptory and posi¬ 
tive a manner, remembering that human nature is al¬ 
ways liable to mistake in this corrupt and feeble state. 
A dogmatical spirit has many inconveniences attending 
it: as 

1. It stops the ear against all further reasoning upon 
that subject, and shuts up the mind from all further im¬ 
provements of knowledge. If you have resolutely fixed 
your opinion, though it be upon too slight and insuffi¬ 
cient grounds, yet you will stand determined to renounce 
the strongest reason brought for the contrary opinion, 


TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE. * 15 

and grow obstinate against the force of the clearest ar- 
gument. Positivo is a man of this character; and has 
often pronounced his assurance of the Cartesian vor¬ 
texes: last year some further light broke in upon his un¬ 
derstanding, with uncontrollable force, by reading some¬ 
thing of mathematical philosophy; yet having asserted 
his former opinions in a most confident manner, he is 
tempted now to wink a little against the truth, or to 
prevaricate in his discourse upon that subject, lest by 
admitting conviction, he should expose himself to the 
necessity of confessing his former folly and mistake: 
and he has not humility enough for that. 

2. A dogmatical spirit naturally leads us to arrogance 
of mind, and gives a man some airs in conversation 
which are too haughty and assuming. • Audens is a man 
of learning, and very good company; but his infallible 
assurance renders his carriage sometimes insupportable. 

A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of 
his neighbours. Every one of his own opinions appears 
to him written as it were with sunbeams; and he grows 
angry that his neighbour does not see it in the same 
light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents, as 
men of a low and dark understanding, because they will 
not believe what he does. Furio goes further in this 
wild track; and charges those who refuse his notions 
with wilful obstinacy and vile hypocrisy; he tells them 
boldly, that they resist the truth, and sin against their 
consciences. 

These are the men that, when they deal in contro¬ 
versy, delight in reproaches. They abound in tossing 
about absurdity and stupidity among their brethren; 
they cast the imputation of heresy and nonsense plenti¬ 
fully upon their antagonists: and in matters of sacred 
importance, they deal out their anathemas in abun¬ 
dance upon Christians better than themselves; they de¬ 
nounce damnation upon their neighbours, without either 
justice or mercy; and when they pronounce sentences 
of divine wrath against supposed heretics, they add 
their own human fire and indignation. A dogmatist in 
religion is not a great way off from a bigot, and is in 
high danger of growing up to be a bloody persecutor 


GENERAL RULES 


ia 


XI. Though caution and slow assent will guard you 
against frequent mistakes and retractions; yet you should 
get humility and courage enough to retract any mistake, 
and confess an error: frequent changes are tokens of le¬ 
vity in our first determinations; yet you should never be 
too proud to change your opinion, nor frightened at the 
name of changeling. Learn to scorn those vulgar bug¬ 
bears, which confirm foolish man in his old mistakes, for 
fear of being charged with inconstancy. I confess it is 
better not to judge, than to judge falsely; it is wiser to 
withhold our assent till we see complete evidence; but 
if we have too suddenly given up our assent, as the wisest 
man does sometimes, if we have professed what we find 
afterwards to be false, we should never be ashamed nor 
afraid to renounce a mistake. That is a noble essay 
which is found among the occasional papers “ to encour¬ 
age the world to practise retractations;” and I would re¬ 
commend it to the perusal of every scholar and every 
Christian. 

XII. He that would raise his judgment above the vul¬ 
gar rank of mankind, and learn to pass a just sentence 
on persons and things, must take heed of a fanciful tem¬ 
per of mind, and a humorous conduct in his affairs. 
Fancy and humour, early and constantly indulged, may 
expect an old age overrun with follies. 

The notion of a humourist is one that is greatly pleased, 
or greatly displeased with little things; who sets his heart 
much upon matters of very small importance; who has 
his will determined every day by trifles, his actions sel¬ 
dom directed by the reason and nature of things, and his 
passions frequently raised by things of little moment. 
Where this practice is allowed, it will insensibly warp 
the judgment to pronounce little things great, and tempt 
you to lay a great weight upon them. In short, this 
temper will incline you to pass an unjust value on almost 
every tiling that occurs; and every step you take in this 
path is just so far out of the way to wisdom. 

XIII. For the same reason have a care of trifling with 
things important and momentous, or of sporting with 
things awful and sacred: do not indulge a spirit of ridi¬ 
cule, as some witty men do on all occasions and subjects. 


TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE. 


17 


This will as unhappily bias the judgment on the other 
Side, and incline you to pass a low esteem on the most 
valuable objects. Whatsoever evil habit we indulge in 
practice, it will insensibly obtain a power over our un¬ 
derstanding, and betray us into many errors. Jocander 
is ready with his jests to answer every thing that he hears; 
he reads books in the same jovial humour, and has gotten 
the art of turning every thought and sentence into mer- 
iriment. How many awkward and irregular judgments 
does this man pass upon solemn subjects even when he 
designs to be grave and in earnest! His mirth and laugh¬ 
ing humour is formed into habit and temper, and leads 
his understanding shamefully astray. You will see him 
wandering in pursuit of a gay flying feather, and he is 
drawn by a sort of ignis fatuus into bogs and mire almost 
every day of his life. 

XIV. Ever maintain a virtuous and pious frame of 
spirit; for an indulgence of vicious inclinations debases 
the understanding and perverts the judgment. Whore¬ 
dom and wine, and new wine, take away the heart and 
soul, and reason of a man. Sensuality ruins the better 
faculties of the mind; an indulgence to appetite and pas¬ 
sion enfeebles the powers of reason; it makes the judg¬ 
ment weak and susceptible of every falsehood, and espe¬ 
cially of such mistakes as have a tendency towards the 
gratification of the animal: and it warps the soul aside 
strangely from that steadfast honesty and integrity that 
necessarily belongs to the pursuit of truth. It is the vir¬ 
tuous man who is in a fair way to wisdom. “ God gives 
to those that are good in his sight wisdom, and know¬ 
ledge, and joy,” Eccles. ii. 26. 

Piety towards God, as well as sobriety and virtue, are 
necessary qualifications to make a truly wise and judi¬ 
cious man. He that abandons religion must act in such 
a contradiction to his own conscience and best judgment, 
that he abuses and spoils the faculty itself. It is thus in 
the nature of things, and it is thus by the righteous judg¬ 
ment of God: even the pretended sages among the hea¬ 
thens, who did not like to retain God in their knowledge, 
they were given up to a reprobate mind, itg vow eiio/.tf/.ov , 
an undistinguishing o injudicious mind, so that they 
2 * 


18 


GENERAL RULES 


judged inconsistently, and practised mere absurdities, 

tsc (/.y[ o6vjjxovt», Rom. i. 28. 

And it is the character of the slaves of antichrist, 2 
Thess. ii. 10, &c. that those “who receive not the love 
of the truth were exposed to the power of diabolical 
sleights and lying wonders.” When divine revelation 
shines and blazes in the face of men with glorious evi¬ 
dence, and they wink their eyes against it, the god of 
this world is Suffered to blind them, even in the most ob¬ 
vious, common, and sensible things. The great God of 
Heaven, for this cause, sends them strong delusions, that 
they should believe a lie; and the nonsense of transub- 
stantiation, in the popish world, is a most glaring accom¬ 
plishment of this prophecy, beyond even what could have 
been thought of or expected among creatures who pre¬ 
tend to reason. 

XV. Watch against the pride of your own reason, and 
a vain conceit of your own intellectual powers, with the 
neglect of divine aid and blessing. Presume not upon 
great attainments in knowledge by your own self-suffi¬ 
ciency: those who trust to their own understandings en¬ 
tirely are pronounced fools in the word of God; and it is 
the wisest of men gives them this character. “ He that 
trusteth in his own heart is a fool,” Prov. xxviii. 26. 
And the same divine writer advises us to “ trust in the 
Lord with all our heart, and not to lean to our under¬ 
standings, nor to be wise in our own eyes,” chap. iii. 6. 7. 

Those who, with a neglect of religion and dependence 
on God, apply themselves to search out every article in 
the things of God by the mere dint of their own reason, 
have been suffered to run into wild excesses of foolery, 
and strange extravagance of opinions. Every one who 
pursues this vain course, and will not ask for the conduct 
of God in the study of religion, has just reason to fear he 
shall be left of God, and given up a prey to a thousand 
prejudices; that he shall be consigned over to the follies 
of his own heart, and pursue his own temporal and eter¬ 
nal ruin. And even in common studies we should, by 
humility and dependence, engage the God of truth on 
our side. 

XVI. Offer up, therefore, your daily requests to God 


TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE. 


19 


the father of lights, that he would bless all your attempts 
and labours in reading, study, and conversation. Think 
with yourself how easily and how insensibly, by one turn 
of thought, he can lead you into a large scene of useful 
ideas: he can teach you to lay hold on a clue which may 
guide your thoughts with safety and ease through all the 
difficulties of an intricate subject. Think how easily the 
Author of your beings can direct your motions, by his 
providence, so that, the glance of an eye, or a word 
striking the ear, or a sudden turn of the fancy, shall con¬ 
duct you to a train of happy sentiments. By his secret 
and supreme method of government, he can draw you 
to read such a treatise, or converse with such a person, 
who may give you more light into some deep subject in 
an hour, than you could obtain by a month of your own 
solitary labour. 

Think with yourself with how much ease the God of 
spirits can cast into your minds some useful suggestion, 
and give a happy turn to your own thoughts, or the 
thoughts of those with whom you converse, whence you 
may derive unspeakable light and satisfaction, in a mat¬ 
ter that has long puzzled and entangled you: he can 
show you a path which the vulture’s eye has not seen, 
and lead you by some unknown gate or portal, out of a 
wilderness and labyrinth of difficulties, wherein you have 
been long wandering. 

Implore constantly his divine grace to point your in¬ 
clination to proper studies, and to fix your heart there. 
He can keep off temptations on the right hand, and on 
the left, both by the course of his providence, and by the 
secret and insensible intimations of his Spirit. He can 
guard your understandings from every evil influence of 
error, and secure you from the danger of evil books and 
men, which might otherwise have a fatal effect, and lead 
you into pernicious mistakes. 

Nor let this sort of advice fall under the censure of 
the godless and profane, as a mere piece of bigotry or 
enthusiasm, derived from faith and the Bible: for the 
reasons which I have given to support this pious prac¬ 
tice, of invoking the blessing of God on our studies, are 
derived from the light of nature as well as revelation. 


20 


GENERAL RULES, &C. 

He that made our souls, and is the Father of spirits, 
shall he not be supposed to have a most friendly influ¬ 
ence toward the instruction and government of them? 
The Author of our rational powers can involve them in 
darkness when he pleases, by a sudden distemper; or 
he can abandon them to wander into dark and foolish 
opinions, when they are filled with a vain conceit of 
their own light. He expects to be acknowledged in the 
common affairs of life; and he does as certainly expect 
it in the superior operations of the mind, and in the 
search of knowledge and truth. The very Greek 
heathens, by the light of reason, were taught to say, 
’E/. A»o S and the Latins, A Jove Principium 

Musae. In works of learning they thought it neces¬ 
sary to begin with God. Even the poets call upon the 
muse as a goddess to assist them in their compositions. 

The first lines of Homer in his Iliad and his Odyssey, 
the first line of Musaeus in his song of Hero and Lear.der, 
the beginning of Hesiod in his poem of Works and 
Days, and several others, furnish us with sufficient ex¬ 
amples of this kind; nor does Ovid leave out this piece 
of devotion, as he begins his stories of the Metamor¬ 
phoses. Christianity so much the more obliges us, by 
the precepts of Scripture, to invoke the assistance of the 
true God in all our labours of the mind, for the improve¬ 
ment of ourselves and others. Bishop Saunderson says, 
that study without prayer is atheism, as well as that 
prayer without study is presumption. And we are still 
more abundantly encouraged by the testimony of those 
who have acknowledged, from their own experience, 
that sincere prayer was no^hinderance to their studies: 
they have gotten more knowledge sometimes upon their 
knees, than by their labour in perusing a variety of au¬ 
thors; and they have left this observation for such as fol¬ 
low, Bene orasse est bene studuisse, “praying is the 
best studying.” 

To conclude, let industry and devotion join together, 
and you need not doubt the happy success. Prov. ii. 2: 
“ Incline thine ear to wisdom; apply thine heart to un¬ 
derstanding: cry after knowledge, and lift up thy voice: 
seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden trea 


THE FIVE METHODS, &C. 21 

uures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord,” 
&c. which “is the beginning of wisdom.” It is “the 
Lord who gives wisdom even to the simple, and out of 
his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” 


CHAPTER II. 

OBSERVATION, READING, INSTRUCTION BY LECTURES, CON* 
VERSATION, AND STUDY, COMPARED. 

There are five eminent means or methods whereby 
the mind is improved in the knowledge of things; and 
these are observation, reading, instruction by lectures, 
conversation, and meditation; which last, in a most 
peculiar manner, is called study. 

Let us survey the general definitions or descriptions 
of them all. 

I. Observation is the notice that we take of all occur¬ 
rences in human life, whether they are sensible or intel¬ 
lectual, whether relating to persons or things, to our¬ 
selves or others. It is this that furnishes us, even from 
our infancy, with a rich variety of ideas and proposi¬ 
tions, words and phrases: it is by this we know that fire 
will burn, that the sun gives light, that a horse eats 
grass, that an acorn produces an oak, that man is a be¬ 
ing capable of reasoning and discourse, that our judg¬ 
ment is weak, that our mistakes are many, that our sor¬ 
rows are great, that our bodies die and are carried to the 
grave, and that one generation succeeds another. All 
those things which we see, which we hear or feel, which 
we perceive by sense or consciousness, or which we 
know in a direct manner, with scarce any exercise of our 
reflecting faculties, or our reasoning powers, may be in¬ 
cluded under the general name of observation. 

When this observation relates to any thing that im¬ 
mediately concerns ourselves, and of which we are con- 
■cious, it may be called experience. So I am said to 
know or experience that I have in myself a power of 
thinking, fearing, loving, &c. that I have appetites and 
passions working in me, and many personal occurrences 
have attended me in this life. 



22 


THE FIVE METHODS 


Observation therefore includes all that Mr. Locke 
means by sensation and reflection. 

When we are searching out the nature or properties 
of any being by various methods of trial, or when we ap 
ply some active powers, or set some causes to work to 
observe what effects they would produce, this sort of ob¬ 
servation is called experiment. So when I throw a bul 
let into water, I find it sinks; and when I throw the 
same bullet into quicksilver, I see it swims: but if I beat 
out this bullet into a thin hollow shape, like-a dish, then 
it will swim in the water too. So when I strike two 
flints together, I find they produce fire; when I throw a 
seed in the earth, it grows up into a plant. 

All these belong to the first method of knowledge; 
which I shall call observation. 

II. Reading is that means or method of knowledge 
whereby we acquaint ourselves with what other men 
have written, or published to the world in their writings. 
These arts of reading and writing are of infinite advan¬ 
tage; for by them we are made partakers of the senti¬ 
ments, observations, reasonings, and improvements of all 
the learned world, in the most remote nations, and in 
former ages almost from the beginning of mankind. 

III. Public or private lectures are such verbal instruc¬ 
tions as are given by a teacher while the learners attend 
in silence. This is the way of learning religion from 
the pulpit; or of philosophy or theology from the pro¬ 
fessor’s chair; or of mathematics, by a teacher showing 
us various theorems or problems, i. e. speculations or 
practices, by demonstration and operation, with all the 
instruments of art necessary to those operations. 

IV. Conversation is another method of improving our 
minds, wherein, by mutual discourse and inquiry, we 
learn the sentiments of others, as well as communicate 
our sentiments to others in the same manner. Some¬ 
times, indeed, though both parties speak by turns, yet 
the advantage is only on one side, as when a teacher 
and a learner meet and discourse together: but frequently 
the profit is mutual. Under this head of conversation 
we may also rank disputes of various kinds. 

V. Meditation or study includes all those exercises of 


OP IMPROVEMENT COMPARED. 


23 


the mind, whereby we render all the former methods 
useful for our increase in true knowledge and wisdom. 
It is by meditation we come to confirm our memory of 
things that pass through our thoughts in the occurrences 
of life, in our own experiences, and in the observations 
we make. It is by meditation that we draw various in¬ 
ferences, and establish in our minds general principles 
of knowledge. It is by meditation that we compare the 
various ideas which we derive from our senses, or from 
the operations of our souls, and join them in proposi¬ 
tions. It is by meditation that we fix in our memory 
whatsoever we learn, and form our judgment of the 
truth or falsehood, the strength or weakness, of what 
others speak or write. It is meditation or study that 
draws out long chains of argument, and searches and 
finds deep and difficult truths which before lay concealed 
in darkness. 

It would be a needless thing to prove, that our own 
solitary meditations, together with the few observations 
that the most part of mankind are capable of making, 
are not sufficient, of themselves, to lead us into the at¬ 
tainment of any considerable proportion of knowledge, at 
least in an age so much improved as ours is, without the 
assistance of conversation and reading, and other proper 
instructions that are to be attained in bur days. Yet 
each of these five methods have their peculiar advan¬ 
tages, whereby they assist each other; and their pecu¬ 
liar defects, which have need to be supplied by the other’s 
assistance. Let us trace over some of the particular ad¬ 
vantages of each. 

I. One method of improving the mind is observation; 
and the advantages of it are these.— 

1. It is owing to observation, that our mind is fur¬ 
nished with the first simple and complex ideas. It is 
this lays the ground-work and foundation of all know¬ 
ledge, and makes us capable of using any of the other 
methods for improving the mind: for if we did not at¬ 
tain a variety of sensible and intellectual ideas by the 
sensations of outward objects, by the consciousness of 
our own appetites and passions, pleasures and pains, and 
by inward experience of the actings of our own spirits, 


24 


THE FIVE METHODS 


it would be impossible either for men or books to teach 
us any thing. It is observation that must give us our 
first ideas of things, as it includes in it sense and con¬ 
sciousness. 

2. All our knowledge derived from observation, whe¬ 
ther it be of single ideas or of propositions, is knowledge 
gotten at first hand. Hereby we see and know things 
as they are, or as they appear to us; we take the im¬ 
pressions of them on our minds from the original objects 
themselves, which give a clearer and stronger conception 
of things: these ideas are more lively, and the proposi¬ 
tions (at least in many cases) are much more evident. 
Whereas, what knowledge we derive from lectures, 
reading, and conversation, is but the copy of other men’s 
ideas, that is, the picture of a picture; and it is one re¬ 
move further from the original. 

3. Another advantage of observation is, that we may 
gain knowledge all the day long, and every moment of 
our lives; and every moment of our existence we may 
be adding something to our intellectual treasures there¬ 
by, except only while we are asleep, and even then the 
remembrance of our dreaming will teach us some truths, 
and lay a foundation for a better acquaintance with hu¬ 
man nature, both in the powers and in the frailties of it. 

II. The next way of improving the mind is by read¬ 
ing, and the advantages of it are such as these: 

1. By reading we acquaint ourselves, in a very exten¬ 
sive manner, with the affairs, actions, and thoughts, of 
the living and the dead, in the most remote nations, and 
most distant ages, and that with as much ease as though 
they lived in our own age and nation. By reading of 
books we may learn something from all parts of man¬ 
kind; whereas, by observation we learn all from our¬ 
selves, and only what comes within our own direct cog¬ 
nizance; by conversation we can only enjoy the assist¬ 
ance of a very few persons, viz. those who are near us, 
and live at the same time when we do, that is, our neigh¬ 
bours and contemporaries; but our knowledge is much 
more narrowed still, if we confine ourselves merely to 
our own solitary reasonings, without much observation 


OF IMPROVEMENT COMPARED 


25 


or reading: for then all our improvement nr. ust arise only 
from our own inward powers and meditations. 

2. By reading we learn not only the actions and the 
sentiments of different nations and ages, but we transfer 
to ourselves the knowledge and improvements of the 
most learned men, the wisest and the best of mankind, 
when or wheresoever they lived: for though many books 
have been written by weak and injudicious persons, yet 
the most of those books which have obtained great re¬ 
putation in the world, are the products of great and 
wise men in their several ages and nations: whereas we 
can obtain the conversation and instruction of those only 
who are within the reach of our dwelling, or our ac¬ 
quaintance, whether they are wise or unwise: and some¬ 
times that narrow sphere scarce affords any person of 
great eminence in wisdom or learning, unless our in¬ 
structor happen to have this character. And as for our 
study and meditations, even when we arrive at some 
good degrees of learning, our advantage for further im¬ 
provement in knowledge by them, is still far more con¬ 
tracted than what we may derive from reading. 

3. When we read good authors, we learn the best, the 
most laboured, and most refined sentiments, even of 
those wise and learned men; for they have studied hard, 
and have committed to writing their maturest thoughts, 
and the result of their long study and experience: where¬ 
as, by conversation, and in some lectures, we obtain 
many times only the present thoughts of our tutors or 
friends, which, (though they may be bright and useful) 
yet, at first perhaps, may be sudden and indigested, and 
are mere hints which have risen to no maturity. 

4. It is another advantage of reading, that we may 
review what wo have read; we may consult the page 
again and again, and meditate on it at successive sea¬ 
sons, in our serenest and retired hours, having the book 
always at hand: but what we obtain by conversation and 
in lectures, is oftentimes lost again as soon as the com¬ 
pany breaks up, or at least when the day vanishes, un¬ 
less we happen to have the talent of a good memory, or 
quickly retire and note down what remarkables we have 
found in those discourses. And for the same reason, and 

3 



26 


THE FIVE METHODS. 


for the want of retiring and writing, many a learned 
man has lost several useful meditations of his own, and 
could never recall them again. 

III. The advantage of verbal instructions by public 
or private lectures are these: 

1. There is something more sprightly, more delight¬ 
ful and entertaining, in the living discourse of a wise, 
learned, and well qualified teacher, than there is in the 
silent and sedentary practice of reading. The very 
turn of voice, the good pronunciation, and the polite and 
alluring manner which some teachers have attained, 
will engage the attention, keep the soul fixed, and con¬ 
vey and insinuate into the mind, the ideas of things in a 
more lively and forcible way, than the mere reading of 
books in the silence and retirement of the closet. 

2. A tutor or instructer, when he paraphrases and ex¬ 
plains other authors, can mark out the precise point of 
difficulty or controversy, and unfold it. He can show 
you which paragraphs are of greatest importance, and 
which are of less moment. He can teach his hearers 
what authors, or what parts of an author a?e best worth 
reading on any particular subject, and thus save his dis¬ 
ciples much time and pains, by shortening the lab.ours 
of their closet and private studies. He can show you 
what were the doctrines of the ancients, in a compendium 
which perhaps would cost much labour and the perusal 
of many books to attain. He can inform you what new 
doctrines or sentiments are arising in the world before they 
come to be public; as well as acquaint you with his own 
private thoughts, and his own experiments and observa¬ 
tions, which never were, and perhaps never will be publish¬ 
ed to the world, and yet may be very valuable and useful. 

3. A living instructer can convey to our senses those 
notions with which he would furnish our minds, when 
he teaches us natural philosophy, or most parts of mathe¬ 
matical learning. He can make the experiments before 
our eyes. He can describe figures and diagrams, point 
to the lines and angles, and make out the demonstration 
in a more intelligible manner by sensible means, which 
cannot so well be done by mere reading, even though we 
should have the same figures lying in a book before our 


OP IMPROVEMENT COMPARED. 2 m , 

eyes. A living teacher, therefore, is a most necessary 
help in these studies. 

I might add also, that even where the subject of dis¬ 
course is mor^l, logical, or rhetorical, &c. and which does 
not directly come under the notice of our senses, a tutor 
may explain his ideas by such familiar examples, and 
plain or simple similitudes, as seldom find place in books 
and writings. 

4. When an instructer in his lectures delivers any 
matter of difficulty, or expresses himself in such a man¬ 
ner as seems obscure, so that you do not take up his 
ideas, clearly or fully, you have opportunity, at least 
when the lecture is finished, or at other proper seasons, 
to inquire how such a sentence should be understood, 
or how such a difficulty may be explained and removed. 

If there be permission given to free converse with the 
tutor, either in the midst of the lecture, or rather at the 
end of it, concerning any doubts or difficulties that occur 
to the.hearer, this brings it very near to conversation 
or discourse. 

IV. Conversation is the next method of improvement, 
and it is attended with the following advantages: 

1. When we converse familiarly with a learned friend, 
we have his own help at hand to explain to us every 
word and sentiment that seems obscure in his discourse, 
and to inform us of his whole meaning; so that we are 
in much less danger of mistaking his sense: whereas in 
books, whatsoever is really obscure may also abide al¬ 
ways obscure without remedy, since the author is not 
at hand, that we may inquire his sense. 

If we mistake the meaning of our friend in conversa¬ 
tion, we are quickly set right again; but in reading, we 
many times go on in the same mistake, and are not 
capable of recovering ourselves from it. Thence it comes 
to pass that we have so many contests in all ages about 
the meaning of ancient authors, and especially the sacred 
writers. Happy should we be could we but converse 
with Moses, Isaiah, and St. Paul, and consult the pro¬ 
phets and apostles, when we meet with a difficult text: 
but that glorious conversation ia reserved for the ages of 
future blessedness. 


28 


THE FIVE METHODS 


2. When we are discoursing upon any theme with a 
friend, we may propose our doubts and objections against 
his sentiments, and have them solved and answered at 
once.—The difficulties that arise in our minds may be 
removed by one enlightening word of our correspondent: 
whereas in reading, if a difficulty or question arise in our 
thoughts, which the author has not happened to mention, 
we must be content without a present answer or solution 
of it. Books cannot speak. 

3. Not only the doubts which arise in the mind upon 
any subject or discourse are easily proposed and solved 
in conversation, but the very difficulties we meet with 
in books, and in our private studies, may find a relief by 
friendly conferences. We may pore upon a knotty point 
in solitary meditation many months without a solution, 
because perhaps we have gotten into a wrong tract of 
thought; and our labour (while we are pursuing a false 
scent) is not only useless and unsuccessful, but it leads 
us perhaps into a long*train of error for want of being 
corrected in the first step. But if we note down this 
difficulty when we read it, we may propose it to an in¬ 
genious correspondent when we see him; we may be re¬ 
lieved in a moment, and find the difficulty vanish: he 
beholds the object perhaps in a different view, sets it be¬ 
fore us in quite another light, leads us at once into evi¬ 
dence and truth, and that with a delightful surprise. 

4. Conversation calls out into light what has been 
lodged in all the recesses and secret chambers of the 
soul: by occasional hints and incidents it brings old useful 
notions into remembrance; it unfolds and displays the 
hidden treasures of knowledge with which reading, ob¬ 
servation, and study, had before furnished the mind. 
By mutual discourse the soul is awakened and allured 
to bring forth its hoards of knowledge, and it learns how 
to render them most useful to mankind. A man of vast 
reading without conversation is like a miser, who lives 
only to himself. 

5. In free and friendly conversation, our intellectual 
powers are more animated, and our spirits act with a 
superior vigour in the quest and pursuit of unknown 
truths. There is a sharpness and sagacity of thought 


OF IMPROVEMENT COMPARED. 2S 

that attends conversation beyond what we find whilst 
we are shut up reading and musing in our retirements. 
Our souls may be serene in solitude, but not sparkling, 
though perhaps we are employed in reading the works 
of the brightest writers. Often has it happened in free 
discourse, that new thoughts are strangely struck out, 
and the seeds of truth sparkle and blaze through the 
company, which in calm and silent reading would never 
have been excited. By conversation you will both give 
and receive this benefit; as flints, when put into motion, 
and striking against each other, produce living fire oh 
both sides, which would never have arisen from the 
same hard materials in a state of rest. 

6. In generous conversation, amongst ingenious and 
learned men, we have a great advantage of proposing 
our private opinions, and of bringing our own sentiments 
to the test, and learning in a more compendious and 
safer way what the world will judge of them, how man¬ 
kind will receive them, what objections may be raised 
against them, what defects there are in our scheme, and 
how to correct our own mistakes; which advantages are 
not so easy to be obtained by our own private medita¬ 
tions: for the pleasure we take in our own notions, and 
the passion of self-love, as well as the narrowness of 
our views, tempt us to pass too favourable an opinion 
on our own schemes; whereas the variety of genius in 
our several associates will give happy notices how our 
opinions will stand in the view of mankind. 

7. It is also another considerable advantage of con¬ 
versation, that it furnishes the student with the know¬ 
ledge of men and the affairs of life, as reading furnishes 
him with book learning. A man who dwells all his days 
among books may have amassed together a vast heap 
of notions; but he may be a mere scholar, which is a 
contemptible sort of character in the world. A hermit, 
who has been shut up in his cell in a college, has con¬ 
tracted a sort of mould and rust upon his soul, and all 
his airs of behaviour have a certain awkwardness in them; 
but these awkward airs are worn away by degrees in 
company: the rust and the mould are filed and brushed 
off by polite conversation. The scholar now becomes 

3 * 



so 


THE FIVE METHODS 


a citizen or a gentleman, a neighbour, and a friend; he 
learns how to dress his sentiments in the fairest colours, 
as well as to set them in the strongest light. Thus he 
brings out his notions with honour; he makes some use 
of them in the world, and improves the theory by the 
practice. 

But before we proceed too far in finishing a bright cha¬ 
racter by conversation, we should consider that some¬ 
thing else is necessary besides an acquaintance with men 
and books: and therefore I add, 

V. Mere lectures, reading, and conversation, without 
thinking, are not sufficient to make a man of knowledge 
and wisdom. It is our own thought and reflection, study 
and meditation, must attend all the other methods of im¬ 
provement, and perfect them. It carries these advan¬ 
tages with it: 

1. Though observation and instruction, reading and 
conversation, may furnish us with many ideas of men 
and things, yet it is our own meditation, and the labour 
of our own thoughts, that must form our judgment of 
things. Our own thoughts should join or disjoin these 
ideas in a proposition for ourselves: it is our own mind 
that must judge for ourselves concerning the agreement 
or disagreement of ideas, and form propositions of truth 
out of them. Reading and conversation may acquaint 
us with many truths, and with many arguments to sup¬ 
port them; but it is our own study and reasoning that 
must determine whether these propositions are true, and 
whether these arguments are just and solid. 

It is confessed there are a thousand things which our 
eyes have not seen, and which would never come within 
the reach of our personal and immediate knowledge and 
observation, because of the distance of times and places: 
these must be known by consulting other persons; and 
that is done either in their writings or in their discourses. 
But after all, let this be a fixed point with us, that it is 
our own reflection and judgment must determine how 
far we should receive that which books or men inform 
us of, and how far they are worthy of our assent and 
credit. 

2. It is meditation and study that transfers and con- 


OF IMPROVEMENT COMPARED. 


31 


veys the notions and sentiments of others to ourselves, 
so as to make them properly our own. It is our own 
judgment upon them, as well as our memory of them, 
that makes them become our own property. It does as 
it were concoct our intellectual food, and turns it into a 
part of ourselves: just as a man may call his limbs and 
his flesh his own, whether he borrowed the materials 
from the ox or the sheep, from the lark or the lobster: 
whether he derived it from corn or milk, the fruits of the 
trees, or the herbs and roots of the earth; it is all now 
become one substance with himself, and he wields and 
manages those muscles and limbs for his own proper pur¬ 
poses, which once were the substance of other animals 
or vegetables; that very substance which last week was 
grazing in the field or swimming in the sea, waving in 
the milk-pail, or growing in the garden, is now become 
part of the man. 

3. By study and meditation we improve the hints that 
we have acquired by observation, conversation, and read¬ 
ing: we take more time in thinking, and by the labour 
of the mind we penetrate deeper into the themes of 
knowledge, and carry our thoughts sometimes much far¬ 
ther on many subjects, than we ever met with, either in 
the books of the dead or discourses of the living. It is 
our own reasoning that draws out one truth from another, 
and forms a whole scheme or science from a few hints 
which we borrowed elsewhere. 

By a survey of these things we may justly conclude, 
that he who spends all his time in hearing lectures, or 
poring upon books, without observation, meditation, or 
converse, will have but a mere historical knowledge of 
learning, and be able only to tell what others have 
known or said on the subject: he that lets all his time 
flow away in conversation, without due observation, 
reading, or study, will gain but a slight and superficial 
knowledge, which will be in danger of vanishing with 
the voice of the speaker: and he that confines himself 
merely to his closet, and his own narrow observation of 
things, and is taught only by his own solitary thoughts, 
without instruction by lectures, reading, or free conver¬ 
sation, will be in danger of a narrow spirit, a vain con- 


32 


RULES RELATING 


ceit of himself, and an unreasonable contempt of others; 
and after all, he will obtain but a very limited and im¬ 
perfect view and knowledge of things, and he will sel¬ 
dom learn how to make that knowledge useful. 

These five methods of improvement should be pursued 
jointly, and go hand in hand, where our circumstances 
are so happy as to find opportunity and conveniency to 
enjoy them all; though I must give opinion that two of 
them, viz: reading and meditation, should employ much 
more of our time than public lectures, or conversation 
and discourse. As for observation, we may be always 
acquiring knowledge that way, whether we are alone or 
in eompany. 

But it will be for our further improvement, if we go 
over all these five methods of obtaining knowledge more 
distinctly and more at large, and see what special ad¬ 
vances in useful science we may draw from them all. 


CHAPTER III. 

RULES RELATING TO OBSERVATION. 

. Though observation, in the strict sense of the word, 
and as it is distinguished from meditation and study, is 
the first means of improvement, and in its strictest sense 
does not include in it any reasonings of the mind upon 
the things which we observe, or inferences drawn from 
them; yet the motions of the mind are so exceedingly 
swift, that it is hardly possible for a thinking man to 
gain experiences or observations without making some 
secret and short reflections upon them, and therefore in 
giving a few directions concerning this method of im¬ 
provement, I shall not so narrowly confine myself to the 
first mere impression of object on the mind by observa¬ 
tion; but include also some hints which relate to the first, 
most easy, and obvious reflections or reasonings which 
arise from them. 

1. Let the enlargement of your knowledge be one 
constant view and design in life; since there is no time 



TO OBSERVATION. 


S3 


or place, no transactions, occurrences, or engagements 
in life, which exclude us from this method of improving 
the mind. When we are alone, even in darkness and 
silence, we may converse with our own hearts, observe 
the working of our own spirits, and reflect upon the in¬ 
ward motions of our own passions in some of the latest 
occurrences in life; we may acquaint ourselves with tho 
powers and properties, the tendencies and inclinations 
both of body and spirit, and gain a more intimate know¬ 
ledge of ourselves. When we are in company, we may 
discover something more of human nature, of human 
passions and follies, and of human affairs, vices, and vir¬ 
tues, by conversing with mankind, and observing their 
conduct. Nor is there any thing more valuable than 
the knowledge of ourselves, and the knowledge of men, 
except it be the knowledge of God who made us, and 
our relation to him as our Governor. 

When we are in the house or the city, wheresoever 
we turn our eyes, we see the works of men; when we 
are abroad in the country, we behold more of the works 
of God. The skies above, and the ground beneath us, 
and the animal and vegetable world round about us, 
may entertain our observation with ten thousand varie¬ 
ties. 

Endeavour therefore to derive some instruction or im? 
provement of the mind from every thing which you see 
or hear, from every thing which occurs in human life, 
from every thing within you or without you. 

Fetch down some knowledge from the clouds, the 
stars, the sun, the moon, and the revolutions of all the 
planets. Dig and draw up some valuable meditations 
from the depths of the earth, and search them through 
the vast oceans of water. Extract some intellectual 
improvements from the minerals and metals; from the 
wonders of nature among the vegetables, and herbs, 
trees, and flowers. Learn some lessons from the birds 
and the beasts, and the meanest insect. Read the wis¬ 
dom of God, and his admirable contrivance in them all: 
read his almighty power, his rich and various goodness 
in all the works of his hands. 

From the day and the night, the hours and the flying 


34 


RULES RELATING 


minutes, learn a wise improvement of time, and bo 
watchful to seize every opportunity to increase in know¬ 
ledge. 

From the vicissitudes and revolutions of nations and 
families, and from the various occurrences of the world, 
learn the instability of mortal affairs, the uncertainty 
of life, the certainty of death. From a coffin and a 
funeral, learn to meditate upon your departure. 

From the vices and follies of others, observe what is 
hateful in them; consider how such a practice looks in 
another person, and remember that it looks as ill or 
worse in yourself. From the virtue of others, learn 
something worthy of your imitation. 

From the deformity, the distress, or calamity of others, 
derive lessons of thankfulness to God, and hymns of 
grateful praise to your Creator, Governor, and Bene¬ 
factor, who has formed you in a better mould, and 
guarded you from those evils. Learn also the sacred 
lesson of contentment in your own estate, and compas¬ 
sion to your neighbour under his miseries. 

From your natural powers, sensations, judgment, 
memory, hands, feet, &c. make this inference, that they 
were not' given you for nothing, but for some useful em¬ 
ployment to the honour of your Maker, and for the good 
of your fellow creatures, as well as for your own best 
interest and final happiness. 

From the sorrows, the pains, the sicknesses, and suf¬ 
ferings that attend you, learn the evil of sin, and the 
imperfection of your present state. From your own 
sins and follies, learn the patience of God toward you, 
and the practice of humility toward God and man. 

Thus from every appearance in nature, and from 
every occurrence of life, you may derive natural, moral, 
and religious observations to entertain your minds, as 
well as rules of conduct in the affairs relating to this 
life and that which is to come. 

II. In order to furnish the mind with a rich variety 
of ideas, the laudable curiosity of young people should 
be indulged and gratified, rather than discouraged. It 
is a very hopeful sign in young persons, to see them cu¬ 
rious in observing, and inquisitive in searching into the 


TO OBSERVATION. 


35 


greatest part of things that occur; nor should such an 
inquiring temper be frowned into silence, nor be rigbr- 
ously restrained, but should rather be satisfied with pro¬ 
per answers given to all those queries. 

For this reason also, where time and fortune allow it, 
young people should be led into company at proper sea¬ 
sons, should be carried abroad to see the fields, and the 
woods, and the rivers, the buildings, towns, and cities 
distant from their own dwelling; they should be enter¬ 
tained with the sight cf strange birds, beasts, fishes, in¬ 
sects, vegetables, and productions both of nature and 
art of every kind, whether they are the products of 
their own or foreign nations: and in due time, where 
Providence gives opportunity, they may travel under a 
wise inspector or tutor to different parts of the world for 
the' same end, that they may bring home treasures of 
useful knowledge. 

III. Among all these observations write down what 
is most remarkable and uncommon: reserve these re¬ 
marks in store for proper occasions, and at proper sea¬ 
sons take a review of them. Such a practice will give 
you a habit of useful thinking; this will secure the 
workings of your soul from running to waste; and by 
this means even your looser moments will turn to hap¬ 
py account both here and hereafter. 

And whatever useful observations have been made, 
let them be at least some part of the subject of you 
conversation among your friends at next meeting. 

Let the circumstances or situation in life be what or 
where they will, a man should never neglect this im¬ 
provement which may be derived from observation. 
Let him travel into the East or West Indies, and fulfil 
the duties of the military or the mercantile life there; 
let him rove through the earth or the seas, for his own 
humour as a traveller, or pursue his diversions in what 
part of the world he pleases as a gentleman: let pros¬ 
perous or adverse fortune call him to the most distant 
parts of the globe; still let him carry on his knowledge , 
and the improvement of his soul by wise observations. 

In due time, by this means, he may render himself some 
way useful to the societies of mankind. 


38 


RULES RELATING 


Theobaldino, in his younger years, visited the forests 
of Norway on the account of trade and timber, and be¬ 
sides his proper observations of the growth of trees on 
those northern mountains, he learned there was a sort 
of people called Fins, in those confines which border 
upon Sweden, whose habitation is in the woods; and he 
lived afterwards to give a good account of them and 
some of their customs to the Royal Society for the im¬ 
provement of natural knowledge. Puteoli was taken 
captive into Turkey in his youth, and travelled with his 
master in their holy pilgrimage to Mecca, whereby he 
became more intelligent in the forms, ceremonies, and 
fooleries of the Mahometan worship, than perhaps any 
Briton knew before; and by his manuscripts we are 
more acquainted in this last century with the Turkish 
sacreds, than any one had ever informed us. 

IV. Let us keep our minds as free as possible from 
passions and prejudices; for these will give a wrong turn 
to our observations both on persons and tilings. The 
eyes of a man in the jaundice make yellow observa¬ 
tions on every thing; and the soul, tinctured with any 
passion or prejudice, diffuses a false colour over the real 
appearance of things, and disguises many of the com¬ 
mon occurrences of life: it never beholds things in a 
true light, nor suffers them to appear as they are. 
Whensoever, therefore, you would make proper obser¬ 
vations, let self, with all its influences, stand aside as 
far as possible; abstract your own interest and your own 
concern from them, and bid all friendships and enmities 
stand aloof and keep out of the way, in the observa¬ 
tions that you make relating to persons and things. 

If this rule were well obeyed, we should be much 
better guarded against those common pieces of miscon¬ 
duct in the observations of men, viz: the false judg¬ 
ments of pride and envy. How ready is envy to min¬ 
gle with the notices which we take of other persons! 
How often is mankind prone to put an ill sense upon 
the action of their neighbours, to take a survey of them 
<h an evil position and in an unhappy light! And by 
this means we form a worse opinion of our neighbours 
Ilian they deserve* while at the same time pride and 


TO OBSERVATION. 


37 


»solf-flattery tempt us to make unjust observations on 
ourselves in our own favour. In all the fa^jurable 
judgments we pass concerning ourselves, we should al¬ 
low a little abatement on this account. 

V. In making your observations on persons, take care 
of indulging that busy curiosity which is ever inquiring 
into private and domestic affairs, with an endless itch 
of learning the secret history of families. It is but sel¬ 
dom that such a prying curiosity attains any valuable 
ends: it often begets suspicions, jealousies, and distur¬ 
bances in households, and it is a frequent temptation to 
persons to defame their neighbours: some persons cannot 
help telling what they know: a busybody is most Jiable 
to become a tattler upon every occasion. 

VI. Let your observation, even of persons and their 
conduct, be chiefly designed in order to lead you to a 
better acquaintance with things, particularly with hu¬ 
man nature; and to inform you what to imitate an<L 
what to avoid, rather than to furnish out matter for the 
evil passions of the mind, or the impertinencies of dis¬ 
course and reproaches of the tongue. 

VII. Though it may be proper sometimes to make 

your observations concerning persons as well as things 
the subject of your discourse in learned or useful con¬ 
versations, yet what remarks you make on particular 
persons, particularly to their disadvantage, should for 
the most part lie hid in your own breast, till some just 
and apparent occasion, some necessary call of Provi¬ 
dence, leads you to speak to them. / 

If the character or conduct which you observe be 
greatly culpable, it should so much the less be published. 
You may treasure up such remarks of the follies, inde¬ 
cencies, or vices of your neighbours as may be a con¬ 
stant guard against your practice of the same, without 
exposing the reputation of your neighbour on that ac¬ 
count. It is a good old rule, that our conversation 
should rather be laid out on things than on persons; and 
this rule should generally be observed, unless names be 
concealed, wheresoever the faults or follies of mankind 
are our present theme. 

Our late Archbishop Tillotson has written a small but 

4 


38 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


excellent discourse on evil speaking, wherein he admirals 
bly explains, limits, and applies, that general apostolic 
precept, Speak evil of no man, Tit. iii. 2. 

VIII. Be not too hasty to erect general theories from 
a few particular observations, appearances, or experi¬ 
ments. This is what the logicians call a false induction. 
When general observations are drawn from so many 
particulars as to become certain and indubitable, these 
are jewels of knowledge, comprehending great treasure 
in little room: but they are therefore to be made with 
the greater care and caution, lest errors become large and 
diffusive, if we should mistake in these general notions. 

A hasty determination of some universal principles, 
without a due survey of all the particular cases which 
may be included in them, is the way to lay a trap for 
our own understandings, in their pursuit of any subject, 
and we shall often be taken captives into mistake and 
falsehood. Niveo in his youth observed, that on three 
Christmas Days together there fell a good quantity of 
snow, and now hath writ it down in his almanac, as a 
part of his wise remarks on the weather, that it will al¬ 
ways snow at Christmas. Euron, a young lad, took no¬ 
tice ten times, that there was a sharp frost when the 
wind was in the north-east, therefore, in the middle of 
the last July, he almost expected it should freeze, be¬ 
cause the weather-cocks showed him a north-east wind; 
and he was still more disappointed, when he found it a 
very sultry season. It is the same hasty judgment that 
hath thrown scandal on a whole nation for the sake of 
some culpable characters belonging to several particular 
natives of that country; whereas all the Frenchmen are 
not gay and airy; all the Italians are not jealous and re¬ 
vengeful; nor are all the English overrun with the spleen. 


CHAPTER IV. 

OF BOOKS AND READING. 

I. The world is full of Books; but there are multi¬ 
tudes which are so ill wrtten, they were never worth 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


39 


any man’s reading; and there are thousands more which 
may be good in their kind, yet are worth nothing whe 
the month or year, or occasion is past for which they 
were written. Others may be valuable in themselves 
for some special purpose, or in some peculiar science, 
but are not fit to be perused by any but those who are 
engaged in that particular science or business. To what 
use is it for a divine or physician, or a tradesman, to 
read over the huge volumes of reports of judged cases 
in the law? or for a lawyer to learn Hebrew, and read 
the Rabbins? It is of vast advantage for improvement 
of knowledge, and saving time, for a young man to 
have the most proper books for his reading recommend¬ 
ed by a judicious friend. 

II. Books of importance of any kind, and especially 
complete treatises on any subject, should be first read in 
a more general and cursory manner, to learn a little 
what the treatise promises, and what you may expect 
from the writer’s manner and skill. And for this end I 
would advise always that the preface be read, and a sur¬ 
vey taken of the table of contents, if there be one, be¬ 
fore the survey of the book. By this means you will 
not only be better fitted to give the book the first read¬ 
ing, but you will be much assisted in your second peru¬ 
sal of it, which should be done with greater attention 
and deliberation, and you will learn with more ease and 
readiness what the author pretends to teach. In your 
reading, mark what is new br unknown to you before 
and review those chapters, pages, or paragraphs. Un¬ 
less a reader has an uncommon and most retentive me¬ 
mory, I may venture to affirm, that there is scarce any 
book or chapter worth reading once, that is not worthy 
of a second perusal. At least to take a careful rev-iew 
of all the lines or paragraphs which you marked, and 
make a recollection of the sections which you thought 
truly valuable. 

There is another reason also why I would choose to 
take a superficial and cursory survey of a book, before I 
sit down to read it, and dwell upon it with studious at¬ 
tention; and that is, that there may be several difficul 
ties in it which we cannot easily understand and con- 


40 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


quer at the first reading, for want of a fuller compre¬ 
hension of the author’s whole scheme. And therefore 
in such treatises, we should not stay till we master every 
difficulty at the first perusal; for perhaps many of these 
would appear to be solved when we have proceeded fur¬ 
ther in that book, or would vanish of themselves upon a 
second reading. 

III. If three or four persons agreed to read the same 
book, and each brings his own remarks upon it, at some 
set hours appointed for conversation, and they commu¬ 
nicate mutually their sentiments on the subject, and de¬ 
bate about it in a friendly manner, this practice will ren¬ 
der the reading any author more abundantly beneficial 
to any one of them. 

IV. If several persons engaged in the same study, 
take into their hands distinct treatises on one subject, 
and appoint a season of communication once a week, 
they may inform each other in a brief manner concern¬ 
ing the sense, sentiments, and methods of those several 
authors, and thereby promote each other’s improvement, 
either by recommending the perusal of the same book 
to their companions, or perhaps by satisfying their in¬ 
quiries concerning it by conversation, without every one’s 
perusing it. 

V. Remember that your business in reading or in con¬ 
versation, especially on subjects of natural, moral, or 
divine science, is not merely to know the opinion of the 
author or speaker, for this'is but the mere knowledge of 
history; but your chief business is to consider whether 
their opinions are right or no, and to improve your own 
solid knowledge on that subject by meditation on the 
themes of their writing or discourse. Deal freely with 
every author you read, and yield up your assent only 
to evidence and just reasoning on the subject. 

Here I would be understood to speak only of human 
authors, and not of the sacred and inspired writings. 
In these our business is only to find out the true sense, 
and understand the true meaning of the paragraph and 
page, and our assent then is bound to follow when we 
are before satisfied that the writing is divine. Yet I 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 41 

might add also, that even this is sufficient evidence to 
demand our assent. 

But in the composures of men, remember you are a 
man as well as they; and it is not their reason but jour 
own that is given to guide you when you arrive at years 
of discretion, of manly age and judgment. 

VI. Let this therefore be your practice, especially 
after you have gone through one course of any science 
in your academical studies; if a writer on that subject 
maintains the same sentiments as you do, yet if he does 
not explain his ideas or prove his positions well, mark 
the faults or defects, and endeavour to do better, either 
in the margin of your book, or rather in some papers ot 
your own, or at least let it be done in your private 
meditations. As for instance'— 

.Where the author is obscure, enlighten him: where he 
is imperfect, supply his deficiencies: where he is too brief 
and concise, amplify a little, and set his notions in a 
fairer view: where he is redundant, mark those para¬ 
graphs to be retrenched: when he trifles and grows im¬ 
pertinent, abandon those passages or pages: when he 
argues, observe whether his reasons be conclusive: if 
the conclusion be true, and yet the argument weak, en¬ 
deavour to confirm it by better proofs: where he derives 
or infers any proposition darkly and doubtfully, make the 
justice of the inference appear, and make further inferen¬ 
ces or corollaries, if such occur to your mind: where you 
suppose he is in a mistake, propose your objections and 
correct his sentiments: what he writes so well as to ap¬ 
prove itself of your judgment, both as just and useful, 
treasure it up in your memory, and count it a part of 
your intellectual gains. 

Note, Many of these same directions, which I have 
now given, may be practised with regard to conversa¬ 
tion as well as reading, in order to render it useful in 
the most extensive and lasting manner. 

VII. Other things also of the like nature may be use¬ 
fully practised with regard to the authors which you 
read, viz. If the method of a book be irregular, reduce 
it into form, by a little analysis of your own, or by hints 
in the margin: If those things are heaped together, 
4* 


42 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


which should be separated, you may wisely distinguish 
and divide them: if several things relating to the same 
subject are scattered up and down separately through 
the treatise, you may bring them all to one view by 
references; or if the matter of a book be really valuable 
and deserving, you may throw it i>nto a better method, 
rC 3 8tRge it to a more logical scheme, or abridge it into a 
lesser form: all these practices will have a tendency both 
to advance your skill in logic and method, to improve 
your judgment in general, and to give you a fuller survey 
of that subject in particular. When you have finished 
the treatise with all your observations upon it, recollect 
and determine what real improvements you have made 
by reading that author. 

VIII. If a book has rto index to it, or good table of 
contents, it is very useful to make one as you are read¬ 
ing it: not with that exactness as to include the sense of 
every page and paragraph, which should be done if you 
designed to print it; but it is sufficient in your index to 
take notice only of those parts of the book which are 
new to you, or which you think well written, and well 
worthy of your remembrance or review. 

Shall I be so free as to assure my younger friends, 
from my own experience, that these methods of reading 
will cost some pains in the first year of your study, and 
especially in the first authors which you peruse in any 
science, or on any particular subject: but the profit will 
richly compensate the pains. And in the following years 
of life, after you have read a few valuable books on any 
special subject in this manner, it will be easy to read 
others of the same kind, because you will not usually 
find very much new matter in them which you have not 
already examined. 

If the writer be remarkable for any peculiar excellen¬ 
cies or defects in his style or manner of writing, make 
just observations upon this also; and whatsoever orna¬ 
ments you find there, or whatsoever blemishes occur in 
the language or manner of the writer, you may make 
just remarks upon them. And remember that one book 
read over in this manner, with all this laborious medita- 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


45 


tion, will tend more to enrich jour understanding, than 
the skimming over the surface of twenty authors. 

IX. By perusing books in the manner I have de¬ 
scribed, you will make all your reading subservient not 
only to the enlargement of your treasures of knowledge, 
but also to the improvement of your reasoning powers. 

There are many who read with constancy and dili¬ 
gence, and yet make no advances in true knowledge by 
it. They are delighted with the notions which they 
read or hear, as they would be with stories that are told; 
but they do not weigh them in their minds as in a just 
balance, in order to determine their truth or falsehood; 
they make no observations upon them, or inferences 
from them. Perhaps their eye slides over the pages, or 
the words slide o.ver their ears, and vanish like a rhap¬ 
sody of evening tales, or the shadows of a cloud flying 
over a green field in a summer’s day. 

Or if they review them sufficiently to fix them in 
their remembrance, it is merely with a design to tell the 
tale over again, and show what men of learning they 
are. Thus they dream out their days in a course of 
reading, without real advantage. As a man may be 
eating all day, and, for want of digestion is never nour¬ 
ished; so those endless readers may cram themselves in 
vain with intellectual food, and without real improve¬ 
ment of their minds, for want of digesting it by proper 
reflections. 

X. Be diligent therefore in observing these directions. 
Enter into the sense and arguments of the authors you 
read; examine all their proofs, and then judge of the 
truth or falsehood of their opinions; and thereby you 
shall not only gain a rich increase of your understand- 
ing, by those truths which the author teaches, when you 
see them well supported, but you shall acquire also by 
degrees a habit of judging justly, and of reasoning well, 
in imitation of the good writer whose works you peruse. 

This is laborious indeed, and the mind is backward 
to undergo the fatigue of weighing every argument, and 
tracing every thing to its original. It is much less la¬ 
bour to take all things upon trust: believing is much 
easier than arguing. But when Studentio Trad once 


44 


OF BOOKS AX'D READING. 


persuaded his mind to tie itself down to this method 
which I have prescribed, he sensibly gained an admira¬ 
ble facility to read, and judge of what he read by his 
daily practice of it, and the man made large advances 
in the pursuit of truth; while Plumbinus and Plumeo 
made less progress in knowledge, though they had read 
over more folios. Plumeo skimmed over the pages like 
a swallow over the flowery meads in May. Plumbinus 
read every line and syllable, but did not give himself the 
trouble of thinking and judging about them. They 
both could boast in company of their great reading, for 
they knew more titles and pages than Studentio, but 
were far less acquainted with science. 

I confess those whose reading is designed only to fit 
them for much talk, and little knowledge, may content 
themselves to run over their authors in such a sudden 
and trifling way; they may devour libraries in this man¬ 
ner, yet be poor reasoners at last; and have no solid 
wisdom or true learning. The traveller who walks on. 
fair and softly in a course that points right, and examines 
every turning before he ventures upon it, will come 
sooner and safer to his journey’s end, than he who runs 
through every lane he meets, though he gallops full 
speed all the day. The man of much reading, and a 
large retentive memory, but without meditation, may 
become, in the sense of the world, a knowing man; and 
if he converse much with the ancients, he may attain 
the fame of learning too; but he spends his days afar off 
from wisdom and true judgment, and possesses very 
little of the substantial riches of the mind. 

XI. Never apply yourselves to read any human author 
with a determination beforehand either for or against 
him, or with a settled resolution to believe or disbelieve, 
to confirm or to oppose, whatsoever he saith; but always 
read with a design to lay your mind open to truth, and 
to embrace it wheresoever you find it, as well as to reject 
every falsehood, though it appear under ever so fair a 
disguise. How unhappy are those men who seldom 
take an author into their hands but they have determined 
before they begin whether they will like or dislike him! 
They have got some notion of his name, his character, 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


45 


his party, or his principles, by general conversation, or 
perhaps by some slight view of a few pages; and having 
all their own opinions adjusted beforehand, they read 
all that lie writes with a prepossession either for or against 
him. Unhappy those who hunt and purvey for a party, 
and scrape together out of every author all those things, 
and those only, which favour their ovvn tenets, while 
they despise and neglect all the rest! 

XII. Yet take this caution. I would not be under¬ 
stood here, as though I persuaded a person to live with¬ 
out any settled principles at all, by which to judge of 
men, and books, and things: or that I would keep a man 
always doubting about his foundations. The chief things 
that I design in this advice, are these three: 

1. That after our most necessary and important prin¬ 
ciples of science, prudence, and religion, are settled upon 
good grounds, with regard to our present conduct and 
our future hopes, we should read with a just freedom 
of thought all those books which treat of such subjects 
as may admit of doubt and reasonable dispute. Nor 
should any of our opinions be so resolved upon, especially 
in younger years, as never to hear or to bear an oppo¬ 
sition to them. 

2. When we peruse those authors who defend our 
own settled sentiments, we should not take all their 
arguments for just and solid; but we should make a wise 
distinction between the corn and the chaff, between 
solid reasoning and the mere superficial colours of it; 
nor should we readily swallow down all their lesser 
opinions because we agree with them in the greater. 

3 That when we read' those authors which oppose 
our most certain and established principles, we should 
be ready to receive any informations from them in other 
points, and not abandon at once every thing they say, 
though we are well fixed in our opposition to their main 
point of arguing. 

.Fas est ab hoste doceri. Virg. 

Seize upon truth where’er ’tis found, 

Amongst your friends, amongst your foes, 

On Christian or on heatheh ground; 

The flower’s divine where’er it grows: 

Neglect the prickles and assume the rose. 



46 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


XIII. What I have said hitherto on this subject, re¬ 
lating to books and reading, must be chiefly understood 
of that sort of books, and those hours of our reading and 
study, whereby we design to improve the intellectual 
powers of the mind with natural, moral, or divine know¬ 
ledge. As for those treatises which are written to di¬ 
rect or to enforce and persuade our practice, there i3 one 
thing further necessary; and that is, that when our con¬ 
sciences are convinced that these rules of prudence or 
duty belong to us, and require our conformity to them, 
we should then call ourselves to account, and inquire 
seriously whether we have put them in practice or no; 
we should dwell upon the arguments, and impress the 
motives and methods of persuasion upon our own hearts, 
till we feel the force and power of them inclining us to 
the practice of the things which are there recommended. 

If folly or vice be represented in its open colours, or 
its se'cret disguises, let us search our hearts, and review 
our lives, and inquire how far we are criminal; nor should 
we ever think we have done with the treatise while we 
feel ourselves in sorrow for our past misconduct, and 
aspiring after a victory over those vices, or till we find a 
cure of those follies begun to be wrought upon our souls. 

In all our studies and pursuits of knowledge, let us 
remember that virtue and vice, sin and holiness, and the 
conformation of our hearts and lives to the duties of truy 
religion and morality, are things of far more conse¬ 
quence than all the furniture of our understanding, and 
the richest treasures of more speculative knowledge; and 
that because they have a more immediate and effectual 
influence upon our eternal felicity or eternal sorrow. 

XIV. There is yet another sort of books, of which it 
is proper I should say something, while I am treating 
on this subject; and these are history, poesy, travels; 
books of diversion or amusement: among which we may 
reckon also little common pamphlets, newspapers, or 
such like: for many of these I confess once reading may 
be sufficient-, where there is a tolerable good memory. 

Or when several persons are in company, and one 
reads to the rest such a sort of writing, once hearing 
may be sufficient, provided that every one be so atten- 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


47 


tive, and so free, as to make their occasional remarks 
on such lines or sentences, sucli periods or paragraphs, 
as in their opinion deserve it. Now all those paragraphs 
or sentiments deserve a remark, which are new and un¬ 
common, are noble and excellent for the matter of them, 
are strong and convincing for the argument contained 
in them, are beautiful and elegant for the language or 
the manner, or any way worthy of a second rehearsal; 
and at the request of any of the company let those para¬ 
graphs be read over again. 

Such parts also of these writings as may happen to 
be remarkably stupid or silly, false or mistaken, should 
become subjects of an occasional criticism, made by somo 
of the company; and this may give occasion to the repe¬ 
tition of them, for the confirmation of the censure, for 
amusement or diversion. 

Still let it be remembered, that where the historical 
narration is of considerable moment, where the poesy, 
oratory, Sac. shine with some degrees of perfection and 
glory, a single reading is neither sufficient to satisfy a 
mind that has a true taste of this sort of writings; nor 
can we make the fullest and best improvement of them 
without proper reviews, and that in our retirement as 
well as in company. Who is there that has any gout 
for polite writings that would be sufficiently satisfied with 
hearing the beautiful pages of Steele or Addison, the ad¬ 
mirable descriptions of Virgil or Milton, or some of the 
finest poems of Pope, Young, or Dryden, once read over 
to them, and then lay them by for ever? 

XV. Among these writings of the latter kind we may 
justly reckon short miscellaneous essays on all manner 
of subjects; such as the Occasional Papers, the Tatlers, 
the Spectators, and some other books that have been 
compiled out of the weekly or daily products of tho 
press, wherein are contained a great number of bright 
thoughts, ingenious remarks, and admirable observations, 
which have had a considerable share in furnishing the 
present age with knowledge and politeness. • 

I wish every paper among these writings could have 
been recommended both as innocent and useful. I wish 
every unseemly idea and wanton expression had been 


OF BOOKS AND READING. 


banisheJ from amongst them, and every trifling page 
had been excluded from the company of the rest when 
they had been bound up in volumes: but it is not to be 
expected, in so imperfect a state, that every page or 
piece of such mixed public papers should be entirely 
blameless and laudable. Yet in the main it must be 
confessed, there is so much virtue, prudence, ingenuity, 
and goodness in them, especially in eight volumes of 
Spectators, there is such a reverence for things sacred, 
so many valuable remarks for our conduct in life, that 
they are not improper to lie in parlours, or summer¬ 
houses, or places of usual residence, to entertain our 
thoughts in any moments of leisure or vacant hours that 
occur. There is such a discovery of the follies, iniqui¬ 
ties, and fashionable vices of mankind contained in them, 
that we may learn much of the humours and madnesses 
of the age and the public world, in our own solitary 
retirement, without the danger of frequenting vicious 
company, or receiving the mortal infection. 

XVI. Among other books which are proper and re¬ 
quisite, in order to improve our knowledge in general, 
or our acquaintance with any particular science, it is 
necessary that we should be furnished with Vocabularies 
and Dictionaries of several sorts, viz. of common words, 
idioms and phrases, in order to explain their sense; of 
technical words or the terms of art, to show their use in 
arts and sciences; of names of men, countries, towns, 
rivers, &c. which are called historical and geographical 
dictionaries, &c. These are to be consulted and used upon 
every occasion; and never let an unknown word pass in 
your reading without seeking for its sense and meaning 
in some of these writers. 

If such books are not at hand, you must supply the 
want of them as well as you can, by consulting such as 
can inform you: and it is useful to note down the matters 
of doubt and inquiry in some pocket-book, and take the 
first opportunity to get them resolved, either by persons 
or books, when we meet with them. 

XVII. Be not satisfied with a mere knowledge of the 
best authors that treat of any subject, instead of ac¬ 
quainting ourselves thoroughly with the subject itself. 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


49 


There is many a young student that is fond of enlarging 
his knowledge of books, and he contents himself with 
the notice he has of their title-page, which is the attain¬ 
ment of a bookseller rather than a scholar. Such per¬ 
sons are under a great temptation to practise these two 
follies. (1.) To heap up a great number of books at a 
greater expense than most of them can bear, and to 
furnish their libraries infinitely better than their under¬ 
standing. And (2) when they have gotten such rich 
treasures of knowledge upon their shelves, they imagine 
themselves men of learning, and take a pride in talking 
of the names of famous authors, and the subjects of 
which they treat, without any real improvement of their 
own minds in true science or wisdom. At best their 
learning reaches no further than the indexes and table 
of contents, while they know not how to judge or reason 
concerning the matters contained in those authors. 

And indeed how many volumes of learning soever a 
man possesses, he is still deplorably poor in his under¬ 
standing, till he has made those several parts of learn¬ 
ing his own property by reading and reasoning, by judg¬ 
ing for himself, and remembering what he has read. 


CHAPTER V. 

JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 

I. If we would form a judgment of a book which we 
have not seen before, the first thing that offers is the 
title-page, and we may sometimes guess a little at the 
import and design of a book thereby; though it must be 
confessed that titles are often deceitful, and promise 
more than the book performs. The author’s name, if it 
be known in the world, may help us to conjecture at 
the performance a little more, and lead us to guess in 
what manner it is done. A perusal of the preface or 
introduction (which I before recommended) may further 
assist our judgment; and if there be an index of the con¬ 
tents, it will give us still some advancing light. 

If vie have not leisure or inclination to read over the 



50 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


book itself regularly, then by the titles v>f chapters we 
may be directed to peruse several particular chapters or 
sections, and observe whether there be any thing valua¬ 
ble or important in them. We shall find hereby whether 
the author explains his ideas clearly, whether he reasons 
strongly, whether he methodizes well, whether his 
thought and sense be manly, and his manner polite; or, 
on the other hand, whether he be obscure, weak, trifling, 
and confused; or, finally, whether the matter may not 
be solid and substantial, though the style and manner be 
rude and disagreeable. 

II. By having run through several chapters and sec¬ 
tions in this manner, we may generally judge whether 
the treatise be worth a complete perusal or no. But if 
by such an occasional survey of some chapters our ex¬ 
pectation be utterly discouraged, we may well lay aside 
that book; for there is great probability he can be but 
an indifferent writer on that subject, if he affords but 
one prize to divers blanks, and it may be some down¬ 
right blots too. The piece can hardly be valuable if in 
seven or eight chapters which we peruse there be but 
little truth, evidence, force of reasoning, beauty, in¬ 
genuity of thought, &c. mingled with much error, 
ignorance, impertinence, dulness, mean and common 
thoughts, inaccuracy, sophistry, railing, &c. Life is 
too short, and time is too precious, to read every new 
book quite over, in order to find that it is not worth the 
reading. 

III. There are some general mistakes which persons 
are frequently guilty of in passing a judgment on the 
books which they read. 

One is this; when a treatise is written but tolerably 
well, we are ready to pass a favourable judgment of it 
and sometimes to exalt its character far beyond its 
merit, if it agree with our own principles, and support 
the opinions of our party. On the other hand, if the 
author be of different sentiments, and espouse contrary 
principles, we can find neither wit nor reason, good 
sense, nor good language in it; whereas, alas! if" our 
opinions of things were certain and infallible truth, yet 
a silly author may draw his pen in the defence of them, 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


51 


and he may attack even gross errors with feeble and 
ridiculous arguments. Truth in this world is not al 
ways attended and supported by the wisest and safest 
methods; and error, though it can never be maintained 
by just reasoning, yet may be artfully covered and de¬ 
fended. An ingenious writer may put excellent colours 
upon his own mistakes. Some Socinians who deny the 
Atonement of Christ, have written well, and with much 
appearance of argument for their own unscriptural senti¬ 
ments; and some writers for the Trinity and Satisfaction 
of Christ, have exposed themselves and the sacred doc¬ 
trine by their feeble and foolish manner of handling it. 
Books are never tp be judged of merely by their subject, 
or ,the opinion they represent, but by the justness of their 
sentiment, the beauty of their manner, the force of their 
expression, or the strength of reason, and the weight of 
just and proper argument which appears in them. 

But this folly and weakness of trifling, instead of 
arguing, does not happen to fall only to the share of 
Christian writers; there are some who have taken the 
pen in hand to support the Deistical or Antichristian 
scheme of our days, who make big pretences to reason 
upon all occasions, but seem to have left it all behind 
them when they are jesting with the Bible, and grinning 
at the books which we call sacred. 

Some of these performances would scarce have been 
thought tolerable, if they had not assaulted the Chris¬ 
tian faith, though they have now grown up to a place 
amongst the admired pens. I much question whether 
several of the rhapsodies called the Characteristics, 
would ever have survived the first edition, if they had 
not discovered so strong a tincture of infidelity, and now 
and then cast out a profane sneer at our holy religion. 
I have sometimes indeed been ready to wonder how a 
book, in the main so loosely written, should ever ob¬ 
tain so many readers among men of sense. Surely 
they must be conscious in the perusal, that sometimes a 
patrician may write as idly as a man of plebeian rank, 
and trifle as much as an old school-man, though it is in 
another form. I am forced to say, there are few books 
that ever I read, which made any pretences to a great 


52 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


genius, from which I derived so little valuable know¬ 
ledge as from these treatises. There is indeed amongst 
them a lively pertness, a parade of literature, and much 
of what some folks nowadays call politeness; but it is 
hard that we should be bound to admire all the reveries 
of this author under the penalty of being unfashionable. 

IV. Another mistake which some persons fall into is 
this: when they read a treatise on a subject with which 
they have but Kttle acquaintance, they find almost every 
thing new and strange to them: their understandings are 
greatly entertained and improved by the occurrence of 
many things which were unknown to them before; they 
admire the treatise, and commend the author at once; 
whereas if they had but attained a good degree of skill 
in that science, perhaps they would find that the author 
had written very poorly, that neither his sense nor his 
method was just and proper, and that he had nothing 
in him but what was very common or trivial in his dis¬ 
courses on that subject. 

Hence it comes to pass that Cario and Faber, who 
were both bred up to labour, and unacquainted with the 
sciences, shall admire one of the weekly papers, or a 
little pamphlet that talks pertly on some critical or 
learned theme, because the matter is all strange and new 
to them, and they join to extol the writer to the skies; and 
for the same reason a young academic shall dwell upon 
a Journal or an Observator that treats of trade and 
politics in a dictatorial style, and shall be lavish in the 
praise of the author: while at the same time persons well 
skilled in those different subjects, hear the impertinent 
tattle with a just contempt: for they know how weak 
and awkward many of those little diminutive discourses 
are; and that those very papers of science, politics, or 
trade, which were so much admired by the ignorant, are 
perhaps but very mean performances; though it must 
also be confessed there are some excellent essays in those 
papers, and that upon science as well as trade. 

V. But there is a danger of mistake in our judgment 
of books, on the other hand also: for when we have 
made ourselves masters of any particular theme of know¬ 
ledge, and surveyed it long on all sides, there is perhaps 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


53 


scarce any writer on that subject who much entertains 
and pleases us afterwards, because we find little or no¬ 
thing new in him; and }'et, in a true judgment, perhaps 
his sentiments are most proper and just, his explication 
clear, and his reasoning strong, and all the parts of the 
discourse are well connected and set in a happy light; 
but we knew most of those things before, and therefore 
they strike us not, and we are in danger of discommend¬ 
ing them. 

Thus the learned and the unlearned have their several 
distinct dangers and prejudices ready to attend them in 
their judgment of the writings of men. These which I 
have mentioned are a specimen of them, and indeed but 
a mere specimen; for the prejudices that warp our judg¬ 
ment aside from truth are almost infinite and endless. 

VI. Yet I cannot forbear to point out two or three 
more of these follies, that I may attempt something to¬ 
wards the correction of them, or at least to guard others 
against them. 

There are some persons of a forward and lively temper, 
and who are fond to intermeddle with all appearances 
of knowledge, will give their judgment on a book as 
soon as the title of it is mentioned, for they would not 
willingly seem ignorant of any thing that others know. 
And especially if they happen to have any superior 
character or possessions of this world, they fancy they 
have a right to talk freely upon every thing that stirs 
or appears, though they have no other pretence to this 
freedom. Divito is worth forty thousand pounds. Poli- 
tulus is a fine } T oung gentleman, who sparkles in all the 
shining things of dress and equipage. Aulinus is a 
small attendant on a minister of state, and is at court 
almost every day. These three happened to meet on a 
visit where an excellent book of warm and refined de¬ 
votions lay in the window. What dull stuff is here! 
said Divito; I never read so much nonsense in one page 
in my life; iwr would I give a shilling for a thousand 
such treatises. Aulinus, though a courtier, had not 
used to speak roughly, yet would not allow there was a 
line of good sense in the book, and pronounced him a 
madman that wrote it in his secret retirement, and de*> 

5 * 


54 


JUDGMENT OP BDOKS. 


dared him a fool that published it after his death. Pol'i- 
tulus had more manners than to differ from men of such 
rank and character, and therefore he sneered at the de¬ 
vout expressions as he heard them read, and made the 
divine treatise a matter of scorn and ridicule; and yet it 
was well known, that neither this fine gentleman, nor 
the courtier, nor the man of wealth, had a grain of de¬ 
votion in them beyond their horses that waited at the 
door with their gilded chariots. But this is the way of 
the world; blind men will talk of the beauty of colours, 
and of the harmony or disproportion of figures in paint¬ 
ing; the deaf will prate of discords in music; and those 
who have nothing to do with religion will arraign the 
best treatise on divine subjects, though they do not un¬ 
derstand the very language of the scripture, nor the com¬ 
mon terms or phrases used in Christianity. 

VII. I might here name another sort of judges, who 
will set themselves up to decide in favour of an author, 
or will pronounce him a mere blunderer, according to 
the company they have kept, and the judgment they 
' have heard passed upon a book by others of their own 
stamp or size, though they have no knowledge or taste 
of the subject themselves. These, with a fluent and 
voluble tongue, become mere echoes of the praises or 
censures of other men. Sonillus happened to be in the 
room where the three gentlemen just mentioned gave 
out their thoughts so freely upon an admirable book of 
devotion: and two days afterwards he met with some 
friends of his, where this book was the subject of con¬ 
versation and .praise. Sonillus wondered at their dul- 
ness, and repeated the jests which he had heard cast 
upon the weakness of the author. His knowledge of 
the book, and his decision upon it, was all from hearsay, 
for he had never seen it; and if he had read it through, 
he had no manner of right to judge about the things of 
religion, having no more knowledge or taste of any 
thing of inward piety than a hedgehog or a bear has of 
politeness. 

When I had written these remarks, Probus, who 
knew all the four gentlemen, wished they might have 
an opportunity to read their own character as it is repre- 


JUDGMENT OP BOOKS. 


55 


sented here. Alas! Probus, I fear it would do them 
very little good, though it may guard others against 
their folly: for there is never a one of them would find 
their own name in these characters if they read them; 
though all their acquaintance would acknowledge the 
features immediately, and see the persons almost alive 
in the picture. 

VIII. There is yet another mischievous principle 
which prevails among some persons in passing a judg¬ 
ment on the writings of others, and that is, when from 
the secret stimulations of vanity, pride, or envy, they de¬ 
spise a valuable book, and throw contempt upon it by 
wholesale: and if you ask them the reason of their severe 
censure, they will tell you, perhaps, they have found a 
mistake or two in it, or there are a few sentiments 
pr expressions not suited to their tooth and humour. 
Bavius cries down an admirable treatise of philosophy, 
and says there is atheism in it, because there are a few 
sentences that seem to suppose brutes to be mere ma¬ 
chines. Under the same influence, Momus will not al¬ 
low Paradise Lost to be a good poem, because he has 
read some flat and heavy lines in it; and he thought Milton 
had too much honour done him. It is a paltry humour 
that inclines a man to rail at any human performance, 
because it is not absolutely perfect. Horace would give 
us a better example:— 

Sunt delicta tamen quibus ignovisse velimus, 

Nam neque chorda sonum reddit quern vult manus et mens, 

Nec semper feriet quodcunque minabilur arcus: 

Vcrum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego^paucis 

OfFendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, 

Aut humana parum cavit natura. 

Hor. de Jlrt. Poet. 

Thus Englished:— 

Be not two rigidly censorious: 

A string may jar in the best master’s hand, 

And the most skilful archer miss his aim: 

So in a poem elegantly writ, 

I will not quarrel with a small mistake, 

Such as our nature’s frailty may excuse. 

Roscommon. 

Thil noble translator of Horace, whom I here cite, 
has a very honourable opinion of Homer in the main; 


56 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


yet he allows him to be justly censured for seme grosser 
spots and blemishes in him:— 

For who without aversion ever looked 
On holy garbage, though by Homer cooked; 

Whose railing heroes, and whose wounded gods, 

Make some suspect he snores as well as nods. 

Such wise and just distinctions ought to be made 
when we pass a judgment on mortal things; but Envy 
condemns by wholesale Envy is a cursed plant; some 
fibres of it are rooted almost in every man’s nature, and 
it works in a sly and imperceptible manner, and that 
even in some persons who in the main are men of wis¬ 
dom and piety. They know not how to bear the praises 
that are given to an ingenious author, especially if he 
be living, and of their profession; and therefore they will, 
if possible, find some blemish in his writings, that they 
may nibble and bark at it. They will endeavour to 
diminish the honour of the best treatise that has been 
written on any subject, and to render it useless by their 
censures, rather than suffer their envy to lie asleep, and 
the little mistakes of that author to pass unexposed. 
Perhaps they will commend the work in general with a 
pretended air of candour; but pass so many sly and in¬ 
vidious remarks upon it afterwards, as shall effectually 
destroy all their cold and formal praises.* 

IX. When a person feels any thing of this invidious 
humour working in him, he may by the following con¬ 
sideration attempt the correction of it. Let him think 
with himself how many are the beauties of such an 
author whom he censures, in comparison of his blem¬ 
ishes, and remember that it is a much more honourable 
and good-natured thing to find out peculiar beauties 
than faults; true and undisguised candour is a much 
more amiable and divine talent than accusation. Let 

* I grant when Wisdom itself censures a weak and foolish perfor¬ 
mance, it will pass its severe sentence, and yet with an air of candour, 
if the author has any thing valuable in him: but Envy will sometimes 
imitate the same favourable airs, in order to make its false cavils 
appear more just and credible, when it has a mind to snarl at some 
of the brightest performances of a human writer. 


•JUDGMENT OF BOOKS 


57 


him reflect again, what an easy matter it is to find a 
mistake in all human authors, who are necessarily fal¬ 
lible and imperfect. 

I confess, where an author sets up himself to ridicule 
divine writers, and things sacred, and yet assumes an air 
of sovereignty and dictatorship, to exalt and almost deify 
all the pagan ancients, and cast his scorn upon all the 
moderns, especially if they do but savour of miracles and 
the gospel; it is fit the admirers of this author should 
know, that nature and these ancients are not the same, 
though some writers always unite them. Reason and 
nature never made these ancient heathens their standard, 
either of art or genius, of writing or heroism. Sir 
Richard Steele, in his little essay, called the Christian 
Hero, has shown our Saviour and St. Paul in a more 
glorious and transcendent light than a Virgil or Homer 
could do for their Achilles, Ulysses, or .ZEneas: and I am 
persuaded, if Moses and David had not been inspired 
writers, these very men would have ranked them at 
least with Herodotus and Horace, if not given them the 
superior place. 

But where an author has many beauties consistent 
with virtue, piety, and truth, let not little critics exalt 
themselves, and shower down their ill nature upon him 
without bounds or measure; but rather stretch their own 
powers of soul till they write a treatise superior to that 
which they condemn. This is the noblest and surest 
manner of suppressing what they censure. 

A little wit, or a little learning, with a good degree 
of vanity and ill nature, will teach a man to pour out 
whole pages of remark and reproach upon one real or 
fancied mistake of a great and good author: and this 
may be dressed up by the same talents, and made enter¬ 
taining enough to the world, which loves reproach and 
scandal: but if the remarker would but once make this 
attempt, and try to outshine the author by writing a 
better book on the same subject, he would soon be con¬ 
vinced of his own insufficiency, and perhaps might learn 
to judge more justly and favourably of the performance 
of other men. A cobbler or a shoemaker may find some 
little fault with the latchet of a shoe that an Apelles 


JUDGMENT OP BOOKS. 


»8 

had painted, and perhaps with justice too, when the 
whole figure and poitraiture is such as none but Apelles 
could paint. Every poor low genius may cavil at what 
the richest and the noblest hath performed; but it is a 
sign of envy and malice, added to the littleness and 
poverty of genius, when such a cavil becomes a sufficient 
reason to pronounce at once against a bright author, 
and a whole valuable treatise. 

X. Another, and that a very frequent fault, in passing 
a judgment upon books, is this, that persons spread the 
same praises or the same reproaches over a whole trea¬ 
tise, and all the chapters in it, which are due only to 
some of them. They judge as it were by wholesale, 
without making a due distinction between the several 
parts or sections of the performance; and this is ready 
to lead those who hear them talk into a dangerous mis¬ 
take. Florus is a great and just admirer of the late 
Archbishop of Cambray, and mightily commends every 
thing he has written, and will allow no blemish in him; 
whereas the writings of that excellent man are not all 
of a piece; nor are those very books of his, which have 
a good number of beautiful and valuable sentiments in 
them, to be recommended throughout, or all at once 
without distinction. There is his demonstration of the 
Existence and Attributes of God , which has justly gained 
a universal esteem, for bringing down some new and 
noble thoughts of the wisdom of the creation to the un¬ 
derstanding of the unlearned, and they are such as well 
deserve the perusal of the man of science, perhaps as 
far as the 50th section; but there are many of the follow¬ 
ing sections which are very weakly written, and some of 
them built upon an enthusiasticai and mistaken scheme, 
akin to the peculiar opinions of Father Malebranche; such 
as sect. 51,53, “That we know the finite only by the ideas 
of the infinite.” Sect. 55, 60, “ That the superior rea¬ 
son in man is God himself acting in him.” Sect. 61, 
62, “That the idea of unity cannot be taken from crea¬ 
tures, but from God only:” and several of his sections, 
from 65 to 68, upon the doctrine of liberty, seem to be 
inconsistent. Again, toward the end of his book, he 
spends more time and pains than are needful in refuting 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


59 


the Epicurian fancy of atoms moving eternally through 
infinite changes, which might be done effectually in a 
much shorter and better way. 

So in his posthumous essays, and his letters, there are 
many admirable thoughts in practical and experimental 
religion, and very beautiful and divine sentiments in 
devotion; but sometimes in large paragraphs, or in wholo 
chapters together, )H)u find him in the clouds of mystic 
divinity, and he never descends within the reach of 
common ideas or common sense. 

But remember this also, that there are but few .such 
authors as this great man, who talks so very weakly 
sometimes, and yet in other places is so much superior 
to the greatest part of writers. 

There are other instances of this kind, where men of 
good sense in the main set up for judges, but they carry 
too many of their passions about them, and then, like 
lovers, they are in rapture at the name of their fair idol: 
they lavish out all their incense upon that shrine, and 
cannot bear the thought of admitting a blemish in them. 

You shall hear Altisono not only admire Casimire of 
Poland in his lyrics, as the utmost purity and perfection 
of Latin poesy; but he will allow nothing in him to be 
extravagant or faulty, and will vindicate every line: nor 
can I much wonder at it, when I have heard him pro¬ 
nounce Lucan the best of the ancient Latins, and idolize 
his very weaknesses and mistakes. I will readily ac¬ 
knowledge the Odes of Casimire to have more spirit and 
force, more magnificence and fire in them, and in twenty 
places arise to more dignity and beauty than I could 
ever meet with in any of our modern poets: yet I am 
afraid to say that “ Palla sutilis e luce” has dignity 
enough in it for a robe made for the Almighty: Lib. iv. 
Od. 7, 1. 37, or that the man of virtue in Od. 3, 1. 44, 
“ under the ruins of heaven and earth, will bear up the 
fragments of the falling world with a comely wound on 
his shoulders.” 


.Late ruenti 

Subjiciens sua colla caelo 
Mundum decc.ro vulnere fulcie; 
Interque caeli fragmina. 



60 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


Yet I must needs confess also, that it is hardly possi¬ 
ble a man should rise to so exalted and sublime a vein 
of poesy as Casimire, who is not in danger now and 
then of such extravagances; but still they should not be 
admired or defended, if we pretend to pass a just judg¬ 
ment on the writings of the greatest men. 

Milton is a noble genius, and the world agrees to con¬ 
fess it: his poem of Paradise Lost is a glorious perfor¬ 
mance, and rivals the most famous pieces of antiquity; 
but that reader must be deeply prejudiced in favour of 
the poet, who can imagine him equal to himself through 
all that w T ork. Neither the sublime sentiments, nor 
dignity of numbers, nor force or beauty of expression, 
are equally maintained, even in all those parts which 
require grandeur or beauty, force or harmony. I can- , 
not but consent to Mr. Dryden’s opinion, though I will 
not use his words, that for some scores of lines together 
there is a coldness and flatness, and almost a perfect 
absence of that spirit of poesy which breathes, and lives, 
and flames in other pages. 

XI. When you hear any person pretending to give 
his judgment of a book, consider with yourself whether 
he be a capable judge, or whether he may not lie under 
some unhappy bias or prejudice, for or against it, or 
whether he has made a sufficient inquiry to form his 
justest sentiments upon it. 

Though he be a man of good sense, yet he is incapa¬ 
ble of passing a true judgment of a particular book, if 
he be not well acquainted with the subject of which it 
treats, and the manner in which it is written, be it yerse 
or prose: or if he hath not had an opportunity or leisure 
to look sufficiently into the writing itself. 

Again, though he be ever so capable of judging on 
all other accounts, by the knowledge of the subject, 
and of the book itself, yet you are to consider also 
whether there be any thing in the author, in his man¬ 
ner, in his language, in his opinions, and his particular 
party, which may warp the sentiments of him that judg- 
eth, to think well or ill of the treatise, and to pass too 
favourable or too severe a sentence concerning it. 

If you find that he is either an unfit judge because of 


JUDGMENT OF BOOKS. 


61 


ms ignorance or because of his prejudices, his judgment 
of that book should go for nothing. Philographo is a 
good divine, a useful preacher, and an approved exposi¬ 
tor of scripture; but he never had a taste for any of' the 
polite learning of the age; he was fond of every thing 
that appeared in a devout dress; but all verse was alike 
to him: he told me last week there was a very fine book 
of poems published on the three Christian Graces, Faith, 
Hope, and Charity; and a most elegant piece of oratory 
on the four last things, Death, Judgment, Heaven, 
and Hell. Do you think I shall buy either of 'those 
books merely on Philographo’s recommendation? 


CHAPTER VI. 

OF LIVING INSTRUCTIONS AND LECTURES, OF TEACHERS 
AND LEARNERS. 

I. There are few persons of so penetrating a genius, 
and so just a judgment, as to be capable of learning the 
arts and sciences without the assistance of teachers. 
There is scarce any science so safely and so speedily 
learned, even by the noblest genius and the best books, 
without a tutor. His assistance is absolutely necessary 
for most persons, and it is very useful for all beginners. 
Books are a sort of dumb teachers; they point out the 
way to learning; but if we labour under any doubt or 
mistake, they cannot answer sudden questions, or explain 
present doubts and difficulties: this is properly the work 
r;f a living instructor. 

II. There are very few tutors who are sufficiently 
furnished with such universal learning, as to sustain all 
the parts and provinces of instruction. The sciences are 
numerous, and many of them lie far wide of each other; 
and it is best to enjoy the instructions of two or three 
tutors at least, in order to run through the whole ency¬ 
clopaedia, or circle of sciences, where it may be obtained; 
then we may expect that each will teach the few parts 
of learning which are committed to his care in greater 

6 



62 


OP LIVING INSTRUCTIONS 


perfection. But where this advantage cannot be had 
with convenience, one great man must supply the place 
of two or three common instructors. 

III. It is not sufficient that instructors be competently 
skilful in those sciences which they profess and teach; but 
they should have skill also in the art or method of 
teaching, and patience in the practice of it. 

It is a great unhappiness indeed, when persons by a 
spirit of party, or faction, or interest, or by purchase, 
are set up for tutors, who have neither due knowledge 
of science, nor skill in the way of communication. And, 
alas! there are others who, with all their ignorance 
and insufficiency, have self-admiration and effrontery 
enough to set up themselves; and the poor pupils fare 
accordingly, and grow lean in their understandings. 

And let it be observed also, there are some very, 
learned men, who know much themselves, but have not 
the talent of communicating their own knowledge; or 
else they are lazy, and will take no pains at it. Either 
they have ah obscure and perplexed way of talking, or 
they show their learning uselessly, and make a long 
periphrasis on every word of the book they explain, or 
they cannot condescend to young beginners, or they run 
presently into the elevated parts of the science, because 
it gives themselves greater pleasure, or they are soon 
angry and impatient, and cannot bear with a few im¬ 
pertinent questions of a young inquisitive and sprightly 
genius; or else they skim over a science in a very slight 
and superficial survey, and never lead their disciples 
into the depths of it. 

IV. A good tutor should have characters and qualifi¬ 
cations very different from all these. He is such a one 
as both can and will apply himself with diligence and 
concern, and indefatigable patience, to effect what ho 
undertakes; to teach his disciples, and see that they 
learn; to adapt his way and method, as near as may be, 
to the various dispositions, as well as to the capacities' 
of those whom he instructs, and to inquire often into 
their progress and improvement. 

And he should take particular care of hi3 own tem¬ 
per and conduct, that there be nothing in him or about 


BY TEACHERS. 


«3 

him which may be of ill example; nothing that may 
savour of a haughty temper, or a mean and sordid spirit; 
nothing that may expose him to the aversion or to the 
contempt of his scholars, or create a prejudice in their 
minds against him and his instructions: but, if possible, 
he should have so much of a natural candour and sweet¬ 
ness mixed with all the improvements of learning, as 
might convey knowledge into the minds of his disciples 
with a sort of gentle insinuatioil and sovereign delight, 
and inay tempt them into the highest improvements of 
their reason by a resistless and insensible force. But I 
shall have occasion to say more on this subject, when I 
come to speak more directly of the methods of the com¬ 
munication of knowledge. , 

V. The learner should attend with constancy and care 
on all the instructions of his tutor; and if he happens to 
be at any time unavoidably hindered, he must endeavour 
to retrieve the loss by double industry for time to come. 
He should always recollect and review his lectures, 
read over some other author or authors upon the same 
subject, confer upon it with his instructor, or with his 
associates, and write down the clearest result of his 
present thoughts, reasonings, and inquiries, which he 
may have recourse to hereafter, either to re-examine 
them and to apply them to proper use, or to improve 
them farther to his own advantage. 

VI. A student should never satisfy himself with bare 
attendance on the lectures of his tutor, unless he clearly 
takes up his sense and meaning, and understands the 
things which he teaches. A young disciple should be¬ 
have himself so well as to gain the affection and ear of 
his instructor, that upon every occasion he may, with 
the utmost freedom, ask questions, and talk over his 
own sentiments, his doubts, and difficulties with him, 
and in an humble and modest manner desire the solution 
of them. 

VII. Let the learner endeavour to maintain an hono¬ 
rable opinion of his instructor, and heedfully listen to 
his instructions, as one willing to be led by a more ex¬ 
perienced guide; and though he is not bound to fall in 
with every sentiment of his tutor, yet he should so far 


64 OF LIVING INSTRUCTIONS, &C. 

comply with him as to resolve upon a just consideration 
of the matter, and try and examine it thoroughly with 
an honest heart, before he presume to determine against 
him: and then it should be done with great modesty,. 
with an humble jealousy of himself, and apparent un¬ 
willingness to differ from his tutor, if the force of argu¬ 
ment and truth did not constrain him. 

VIII. It is a frequent and growing folly in our age, 
that pert young disciples soon fancy themselves wiser 
than those who teach them: at the first view, or upon a 
very little thought, they can disqern the insignificancy, 
weakness, and mistake of what their teacher asserts. 
The youth of our day, by an early petulancy, and pre¬ 
tended liberty of thinking for themselves, dare reject at 
once, and that with a sort of scorn, all those sentiments 
and doctrines which their teachers have determined, 
perhaps, after long and repeated consideration, after 
years of mature study, careful observation, and much 
prudent experience. 

IX. It is true teachers and masters are not infallible, 
nor are they always in the right; and it must be ac¬ 
knowledged, it is a matter of some difficulty for younger 
minds to maintain a just and solemn veneration for the 
authority and advice of their parents and the instruc¬ 
tions of their tutors, and yet at the same time to secure 
to themselves a just freedom in their own thoughts. 
We are sometimes too ready to imbibe all their senti¬ 
ments without examination, if we reverence and love 
them; or, on the other hand, if we take all freedom to 
contest their opinions, we are sometimes tempted to cast 
off that love and reverence to their persons which God 
and nature dictate. Youth is ever in danger of these 
two extremes. 

X. But I think 1 may safely conclude thus: Though 
tire authority of a teacher must not absolutely determine 
the judgment of his pupil, yet young and raw and un¬ 
experienced learners should pay all proper deference that 
can be to the instructions of their parents and teachers, 
short of absolute submission to their dictates. Yet still 
we must maintain this, that they should never receive 
an}' opinion into their assent, whether it be conformable 


OP LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 


to 

or contrary to the tutor’s mind, without sufficient evi¬ 
dence of it first given to their own reasoning powers. 


CHAPTER VII. 

OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 

The first thing required in reading an author, or in 
hearing lectures of a tutor, is, that you well understand 
the language in which they write or speak. Living 
languages, or such as are the native tongue of any na¬ 
tion in the present age, are more easily learned and- 
taught by a few rules and much familiar converse, 
joined to the reading some proper authors. The dead 
languages are such as cease to be spoken in any nation; 
and even these are more easy to be taught (as far as 
may be) in that method wherein living languages are 
best learned, i. e. partly by rule, and partly by rote or 
custom. And it may not be improper in this place to 
mention a very few directions for that purpose. 

I. Begin with the most necessary and most general 
observations and rules which belong to that language, 
compiled in the form of a grammar; and these are but 
few in most languages. The regular declensions and 
variations of nouns and verbs should be early and 
thoroughly learned by heart, together with twenty or 
thirty of the plainest and most necessary rules of syntax. 

But let it be observed that, in almost all languages, 
some of the very commonest nouns and verbs have many 
irregularities in them; such are the common auxiliary 
verbs—to be, and to have—to do, and to be done, &c. 
The comparatives and superlatives of the words— good, 
bad, great, small, much, little, &c.; and these should be 
learned among the first rules and variations, because 
they continually occur. 

But as to other words, which are less frequent, let but 
few of the anomalies or irregularities of the tongue be 
taught among the general rules to young beginners. 
These will come in afterwards to be learned by advanced 
6 * 



66 


OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 


scholars in a way of notes on the rules, as in the Latin 
Grammar, called the Oxford Grammar, or in Ruddi- 
man’s notes on his Rudiments, &c. Or they may be 
learned by examples alone, when they do occur; or by 
a larger and more complete system of grammar, which 
descends to the more particular forms of speech; so the 
heteroclite nouns of the Latin tongue, which are taught 
in the school-book called Quae Genus, should not be 
touched in the first learning of the rudiments of the 
tongue. 

II. As the grammar by which you learn any tongue 
should be very short at first, so it must be written in a 
tongue with which you are well acquainted, and which 
is very familiar to you. Therefore I much prefer even 
the common English accidence (as it is called) to any 
grammar whatsoever written in Latin for this end. The 
English accidence has, doubtless, many faults; but those 
editions of it which were printed since the year 1728, 
under the correction of a learned professor, are the best; 
or the English rudiments of the Latin tongue, by that 
learned North Briton, Mr. Ruddiman, which are per¬ 
haps the most useful books of this kind I am acquainted 
with; especially because I would not depart too far from 
the ancient and common forms of teaching, which seve¬ 
ral good grammarians have done, to the great detriment 
of such lads as have been removed to other schools. 

The tiresome and unreasonable method of learning 
the Latin tongue by a grammar, with Latin rules, 
would appear, even to those masters who teach it so, in 
its proper colours of absurdity and ridicule, if those very 
masters would attempt to learn the Chinese or Arabic 
tongue, by a grammar written in the Chinese or Arabic 
language. Mr. Clarke, of Hull, has said enough in a 
few pages of the preface to his new grammar, 1723, to 
make that practice appear very irrational and improper; 
though he lias said it in so warm and angry a manner, 
that it has kindled Mr. Ruddiman to write against him, 
and to say what can be said to vindicate a practice, 
which, I think, is utterly indefensible. 

III. At the same time when you begin the rules, begin 
also the practice. As, for instance, when you decline 


OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 


67 


musa, musse, read and construe the same day some easy 
Latin author, by the help of a tutor, or with some Eng¬ 
lish translation: choose such a book whose style is 
simple, and the subject of discourse is very plain, obvi¬ 
ous, and not hard to be understood' many little books 
have been composed with this view, as Corderius’s Col¬ 
loquies, some of Erasmus’s little writings, the sayings of 
the wise men of Greece, Cato’s moral distiches, and the 
rest which are collected at the end of Mr. Ruddiman’s 
English Grammar; or the Latin Testament, of Castel- 
lio’s translation, which is accounted the purest Latin, 
&c. These are very proper upon this occasion, together 
with jEsop’s and Phaedrus’s Fables, and little stories, 
and the common and daily affairs of domestic life, writ¬ 
ten in the Latin tongue. But let the higher poets, and 
orators, and historians, and other writers whose lan¬ 
guage is more laboured, and whose sense is more re¬ 
mote from common life, be rather kept out of sight till 
there be some proficiency made in the language. 

It is strange that masters should teach children so 
early Tully’s Epistles or Orations, or the poems of Ovid 
or Virgil, whose sense is often difficult to find because 
of the great transposition of the words; and when they 
have found the grammatical sense, they have very little 
use of it, because they have scarce any notion of the 
ideas and design of the writer, it being so remote from 
the knowledge of a child: whereas little common stories 
and colloquies, and the rules of a child’s behaviour, and 
such obvious subjects, will much better assist the memo¬ 
ry of the words by their .acquaintance with the things. 

IV. Here it may be useful also to appoint the learner 
to get by heart the more common and useful words, bokH 
nouns and adjectives, pronouns and verbs, out of some 
well formed and judicious vocabulary. This will furnish 
him with names for the most familiar ideas. 

V. As soon as ever the learner is capable, let the tu¬ 
tor converse with him in the tongue which is to be 
learned, if it be a living language, or if it be Latin, 
which is the living language of the learned world: thus 
he will acquaint himself with it a little by rote, as well 
as by rule, and by living practice, as well as by reading the 


68 


OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 


writings of the dead. For if a child of two years old by this 
method learns to speak his mother tongue, I am sure the 
same method will greatly assist and facilitate the learn¬ 
ing of any other language to those who are older. 

VI. Let the chief lessons, and the chief exercises of 
schools, v. c. where Latin is learned (at least for the 
first year or more,) be the nouns, verbs, and general 
rules of syntax, together with a mere translation out of 
some Latin author into English; and let scholars be 
employed and examined by their teacher daily in redu¬ 
cing the words to their original or theme, to the first 
case of nouns or first tense of verbs, and giving an ac¬ 
count of their formations and changes, their syntax and 
dependencies, which is called parsing. This is a most 
useful exercise to lead boys into a complete and thorough 
knowledge of what they are doing. 

The English translations, which the learner has made, 
should be well corrected by the master, and then they 
should be translated back again for the next day’s ex¬ 
ercise by the child into Latin, while the Latin author is 
withheld from him; but he should have the Latin words 
given him in their first case and tense; and should never 
be left to seek them himself from a dictionary; and 
the nearer he translates it to the words of the author 
whence he derives his English, the more should the 
child be commended. Thus he will gain skill in two 
languages at once. I think Mr. Clarke has done good 
service to the public by his translations of Latin books 
for this end. 

But let the foolish custom of employing every silly 
boy to make themes or declamations and verses upon 
moral subjects, in a strange tongue, before he under¬ 
stands common sense, even in his own language, be 
abandoned and cashiered for ever. 

VII. As the learner improves, let him acquaint him¬ 
self with the anomalous words, the irregular declensions 
of nouns and verbs, the more uncommon connexions of 
words in syntax, and the exceptions to the general rules 
of grammar. But let them all be reduced, as far as 
possible, to those sever il original and general rules, 


OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 69 

which he has learned, as the proper rank and place to 
which they belong. 

VIII. While he is doing this, it may be proper for 
him to converse with authors which are a little more 
difficult, with historians, orators, poets, &c.; but let his 
tutor inform him of the Roman or Greek customs which 
occur therein. Let the lad then translate some parts of 
them into his mother tongue, or into some other well 
known language, and thence back again into the origi¬ 
nal language of the author. But let the verse be trans¬ 
lated into prose, for poesy does not belong to grammar. 

IX. By this time he will be able to acquaint himself 
with some of the special emphases of speech, and the 
peculiar idioms of the tongue. He should be taught 
also the special beauties and ornaments of the language; 
and this may be done partly by th“ ^elp of authors, who 
have collected such idioms and cast them into an easy 
method, and partly by the judicious remarks which his 
instructor may make upon the authors which he reads, 
wheresoever such peculiarities of speech or special ele¬ 
gancies occur. 

X. Though the labour of learning all the lessons by 
heart that are borrowed from poetical authors which 
they construe, is an unjust and unnecessary imposition 
upon the learner, yet he must take the pains to commit 
to memory the most necessary, if not all the common 
rules of grammar, with an example or two under each 
of them: and some of the select and most useful periods 
or sentences in the Latin or Greek author which he 
reads may be learned by heart, together with some of 
the choicer lessons out of their poets; and sometimes 
whole episodes out of heroic poems, &c. as well as 
whole odes among the lyrics, may deserve this honour. 

XI. Let this be always carefully observed, that the 
learners perfectly understand the sense as well as'the 
language of all those rules, lessons, or paragraphs, which 
they attempt to commit to memory. Let the teacher 
possess them of their true meaning, and then the labour 
will become easy and pleasant: whereas, to impose on a 
child to get by heart a long scroll of unknown phrases 
or words, without any ideas under them, is a piece of 


70 


OF LEARNING ^ LANGUAGE. 


useless tyranny, a cruel imposition, and a practice fitter 
for a jackdaw or a parrot, than for any thing that wears 
the shape of a man. 

XII. And here, I think, I have a fair occasion given 
me to consider that question which has been often de- • 
bated in conversation, viz. whether the teaching of a 
school full of boys to learn Latin by the heathen poets, as 
Ovid in his Epistles, and the silly fables of his Meta¬ 
morphoses, Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, in their im¬ 
pure odes, satires, and epigrams, &c. is so proper and 
agreeable a practice in a Christian country. 

XIII. (1.) I grant the language and style of those 
men, who wrote in their own native tongue, must be 
more pure and perfect,* in some nice elegancies and 
peculiarities,* than modern writers of other nations who 
have imitated them; and it is owned also, that the beau¬ 
ties of their poesy may much excel; but in either of 
these things boys cannot be supposed to be much im¬ 
proved or injured by one or the other. 

XIV. (2.) It shall be confessed too that modern poets, 
in every living language, have brought into their work 
so many words, epithets, phrases, and metaphors, from 
the heathen fables and stories of their gods and heroes, 
that in order to understand these modern writers, it is 
necessary to know a little of those ancient follies: but it 
may be answered, that a good dictionary, or such a book 
as the Pantheon or history of those Gentile deities, may 
give sufficient information of those stories, so far as they 
are necessary and useful to school boys. 

XV. (3.) I will grant yet further, that lads who are 
designed to make great scholars or divines, may, by 
reading these heathen poets, be taught better to under¬ 
stand the writings of the ancient fathers against the 
heathen religion; and they learn here what ridiculous 
fooleries the Gentile nations believed as tllfe articles of 
their faith, what wretched and foul idolatries they in¬ 
dulged and practised as duties of religion, for want of 
the divine revelation. But this perhaps may be learned 
as well either by the Pantheon, or some other collection 
at school; or after they have left the school, they mav 


OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 71 

read what their own inclinations lead them to, and 
whatsoever of this kind may be really useful for them. 

XVI. But the great question is, whether all these ad¬ 
vantages which have been mentioned will compensate 
for the long months and years that are wasted among 
their incredible and trifling romances, their false and 
shameful stories of their gods and goddesses and their 
amours, and the lewd heroes and vicious poets of the 
heathen world. Can these idle and ridiculous tales be 
of any real and solid advantage in human life? Do they 
not too often defile the mind with vain, mischievous, 
and impure ideas? Do they not stick long upon the 
fancy, and leave an unhappy influence upon youth? Do 
they not tincture the imagination with folly and vice 
very early, and pervert it from all that is good and holy? 

XVII. Upon the whole survey of things it is my 
opinion that, for almost all boys who learn this tongue, 
it would be much safer to be taught Latin poesy (as 
soon and as far as they can need it) from those excellent 
translations of David’s Psalms, which are given us by 
Buchanan in the various measures of Horace; and the 
lower classes had better read Dr. Johnston’s translation 
of these psalms, another elegant writer of the Scots 
nation, instead of Ovid’s Epistles; for he has turned the 
same psalms, perhaps with greater elegance, into elegiac 
verse, whereof the learned W. Benson, esq. has lately 
published a noble edition, and I hear that these psalms 
are honoured with an increasing use in the schools of 
Holland and Scotland. A stanza or a couplet of these 
writers would now and then stick upon the minds of 
youth, and would furnish them infinitely better with 
pious and moral thoughts, and do something towards 
making them good mei^ and Christians. 

XVIII. A little book collected from the psalms of 
both these translators Buchanan and Johnston, and a 
few other Christian poets, would be cf excellent use for 
schools to begin their instructions in Latin poesy; and I 
am well assured this would be richly sufficient for all 
those in lower rank, who never design a learned profes¬ 
sion, and yet custom has foolishlv bound them to learn 
that language. 


T2 


OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 


But lest it should be thought hard to cast Horace 
and Virgil, Ovid and Juvenal entirely out of the schools, 

I add, if here and there a few lyric odes, or pieces of 
satires, or some episodes of heroic verse, with here and 
there an epigram of Martial, all which shall be clear 
from the stains of vice and impiety, and which may in¬ 
spire the mind with noble sentiments, fire the fancy with 
bright and warm ideas, or teach lessons of morality and 
prudence, were chosen out of those ancient Roman 
writers for the use of the schools, and were collected and 
printed in one moderate volume, or two at the most, it 
would be abundantly sufficient provision out of the 
Roman poets for the instruction of boys in all that is 
necessary in that age of life. 

Surely Juvenal himself would not have the face to 
vindicate the masters who teach boys his sixth satire,’ 
and many paragraphs of several others, when he him¬ 
self has charged us, 

Nil diclu foedum, visuque, ha;c limina tangat 
Intra qua; puer est. Sat. 14. 

Suffer no lewdness, nor indecent speech, 

Th’ apartment of the tender youth to reach. 

Dryden. 

Thus far in answer to the foregoing question. 

But I retire; for Mr. Clarke, of Hull, in his treatise 
on education, and Mr. Philips, preceptor to the Duke 
of Cumberland, have given more excellent directions 
for learning Latin. 

XIX. When a language is learned, if it be of any use 
at all, it is a pity it should be forgotten again. It is 
proper, therefore, to take all just opportunities to read 
something frequently in that language, when other ne¬ 
cessary and important studies will give you leave. As 
in learning any tongue, dictionaries which contain words 
and phrases should always be at hand, so they should 
be ever kept within reach by persons who would re¬ 
member a tongue which they have learned. Nor should 
we at any time content ourselves with a doubtful guess 
at the sense or meaning of any words-which occur, but 
consult the dictionary, which may give us certain infor- 


OF LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 


73 


mation, and thus secure us from mistake. It is mere 
sloth which makes us content ourselves with uncertain 
guesses; and indeed this is neither safe nor useful for 
persons who would learn any language or science, or 
have a desire to retain what they have acquired. 

XX. When you have learned one or many languages 
ever so perfectly, take heed qf priding yourself in these 
acquisitions: they are but mere treasures of words, or 
instruments of true and solid knowledge, and whose 
chief design is to lead us into an acquaintance with 
things, or to enable us the more easily to convey those 
ideas or that knowledge to others. An acquaintance 
with the various tongues is nothing else but a relief 
against the mischief which the building of Babel intro¬ 
duced: and were I master of as many languages as were 
spoken at Babel, I should make but a poor pretence to 
true learning or knowledge, if I had not clear and dis¬ 
tinct ideas, and useful notions in my head under the 
words which my tongue could pronounce. Yet so un¬ 
happy a thing is human nature, that this sort of know¬ 
ledge of sounds and syllables is ready to puff up the 
mind with vanity, more than the most valuable and 
solid improvements of it. The pride of a grammarian, 
or a critic, generally exceeds that of a philosopher. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

OF INQUIRING INTO THE SENSE AND MEANING' OF ANY 
WRITER OR SPEAKER, AND ESPECIALLY THE SENSE OF 
THE SACRED WRITINGS. 

It is a great unhappiness that there is such an ambi¬ 
guity in words and forms of speech, that the same sen¬ 
tence may be drawn into different significations: where¬ 
by it comes to pass, that it is difficult sometimes for the 
reader exactly to hit upon the ideas which the writer or 
speaker had in his mind. Some of the best rules to di¬ 
rect us herein are such as these: 

I. Be well acquainted with the tongue itself, or lan- 

7 



74 


OF KNOWING THE SENSE 


guage, wherein the author’s mind is expressed. Learn 
not only the true meaning of each word, but the sense 
which those words obtain when placed in such a par¬ 
ticular situation and order. Acquaint yourself with the 
peculiar power and emphasis of the several modes of 
speech, and the various idioms of the tongue. The 
secondary ideas which custom has superadded to many 
words should also be known, as well as the particular 
and primary meaning of them, if we would understand 
any writer. See Logic, part I. cap. 4. § 3. 

II. Consider the signification of those words and 
phrases, more especially in the same nation, or near the 
same age in which that writer lived, and in what sense 
they are used by authors of the same nation, opinion, 
sect, party, See. 

Upon this account we may learn to interpret several 
phrases of the New Testament, out of that version of 
the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which is called the Sep- 
tuagint; for though that version be very imperfect and 
defective in many things, yet it seems to me evident 
that the holy writers of the New Testament made use 
of that version many times in their citation of texts out 
of the Bible. 

III. Compare the words and phrases in one place of 
an author, with the same or kindred words and phrases 
used in other places of the same author, which are 
generally called parallel places; and as one expression ex¬ 
plains another which is like it, so sometimes a contrary 
expression will explain its contrary. 

Remember always that a writer best interprets him¬ 
self; as we believe the Holy Spirit to be the supreme 
agent in the writings of the Old Testament and the 
New, he can best explain himself. Hence the theologi¬ 
cal rule arises, that scripture is the best interpreter of 
. scripture; and therefore concordances, which show us 
parallel places, are of excellent use for interpretation. 

IV. Consider the subject on which the author is treat¬ 
ing, and by comparing other places where he treats of 
the same subject, you may learn his sense in the place 
which you are reading, though some of the terms which 
he uses in those two places may be very different. 


OP WRITERS OR SPEAKERS. 


75 


And on the other hand, if the author uses the same 
words where the subject of which he treats is not just 
the same, you cannot learn his sense by comparing 
those two places, though the mere words may seem to 
agree: for some authors, when they aro treating of a 
quite different subject, may use perhaps the same words 
in a very different sense, as St. Paul does the words faith, 
and law, and righteousness. 

V Observe the scope and design of the writer; in- 
' quire into his aim and end in that book, or section, or 
paragraph, which will help to explain particular senten¬ 
ces: for we suppose-a wise and judicious writer directs 
his expressions generally toward his designed end. 

VI. When an author speaks of any subject occasion¬ 
ally, let his sense be explained by those places where 
he treats of it distinctly and professedly: where he 
speaks of any subject in mystical or metaphorical terms, 
explain them by other places where he treats of the 
same subject in terms that are plain and literal: where 
he speaks in an oratorical, affecting, or persuasive way, 
let this be explained by other places where he treats of 
the same theme in a doctrinal or instructive way: where 
the author speaks more strictly and particularly on any 
theme, it will explain the more loose and general ex¬ 
pressions: where he treats more largely, it will explain 
the shorter hints and brief intimations; and wheresoever 
he writes more obscurely, search out some more per¬ 
spicuous passages in the same writer, by which to de¬ 
termine the sense of that obscure language. 

VII. Consider not only the person who is introduced 
speaking, but the persons to whom the speech is direct¬ 
ed, the circumstances of time and place, the temper 
and spirit of the speaker, as well as the temper and 
spirit of the hearers: in order to interpret scripture well, 
there needs a good acquaintance with the Jewish cus¬ 
toms, some knowledge of the ancient Roman and Greek 
times and manners, which sometimes strike a strange 
and surprising light upon passages which were before 
very obscure. 

VIII. In particular propositions, the sense of an au¬ 
thor may sometimes be known by the inferences which 


76 


OF KNOWING THE SENSE 


lie draws from them; and all those senses rnay be excluded 
which will not allow of that inference. 

Note. This rule indeed is not always certain, in read¬ 
ing and interpreting human authors, because they may 
mistake in drawing their inferences; but in explaining 
scripture it is a sure rule; for the sacred and inspired 
writers always make just inferences from their own 
propositions. Yet even in them, we must take heed we 
do not mistake an allusion for an inference, which is 
many times introduced almost in the same manner. 

IX. If it be a matter of controversy, the true sense of 
the author is sometimes known by the objections that 
are brought against it. So we may be well assured, 
the apostle speaks against our “justification in the sight 
of God, by our own works of holiness,” in the 3d, 4th, 
and 5th chapters of the epistle to the Romans, because 
of the objection brought against him in the beginning of 
the 6th chapter, viz. “What shall we say then? shall we 
continue in sin that grace may abound?” which objec¬ 
tion could never have been raised, if he had been prov¬ 
ing our justification by our own works of righteousness. 

X. In matters of dispute, take heed of warping the 
sense of the writer to your own opinion, by any latent 
prejudices of self-love and party spirit. It is this reign¬ 
ing principle of prejudice and party, that has given 
such a variety of senses both to the sacred writers and 
others, which would never have come into the mind of 
the reader if he had not laboured under some such pre¬ 
possessions. 

XI. For the same reason take heed of the prejudices 
of passion, malice, envy, pride, or opposition to an au¬ 
thor, whereby you may be easily tempted to put a false 
and invidious sense upon his -words. Lay aside there¬ 
fore a carping spirit, and read even an adversary with 
attention and diligence, with an honest design to find 
out his true meaning; do not snatch at little lapses and 
appearances of mistake, in opposition to his declared 
and avowed meaning; nor impute any sense or opinion 
to him which he denies to be his opinion, unless it be 
proved by the most plain and express language. 

Lastly, remember that you treat every author, writer, 


OF WRITERS OR SPEAKERS. 


77 


or speaker, just as you yourselves would be willing to 
be treated by others, who are searching out the meaning 
of what you write or speak; and maintain upon your 
spirit an awful sense of the presence of God, who is the 
judge of hearts, and will punish those who, by a base 
and dishonest turn of mind, wilfully pervert the meaning 
of the sacred writers, or even of common authors, under 
the influence of culpable prejudices. See more, Logic, 
part I. cap. 6, § 3, “ Directions concerning the defini¬ 
tions of names.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

RULES OF IMPROVEMENT BY CONVERSATION. 

I. If we would improve our minds by conversation, 
it is a great happiness to be acquainted with persons 
wiser than ourselves. It is a piece of useful advice 
therefore to get the favour of their conversation fre¬ 
quently, as far as circumstances will allow: and if they 
happen to be a little reserved, use all obliging methods 
to draw out of them what may increase your own know¬ 
ledge. 

II. Whatsoever company you are in, waste not the 
time in trifle and impertinence. If you spend some hours 
amongst children, talk with them according to their 
capacity; mark the young buddings of infant reason; 
observe the different motions and distinct workings of 
the animal and the mind, as far as you can discern them; 
take notice by what degrees the little creature grows up 
to the use of his reasoning powers, and what early pre¬ 
judices beset and endanger his understanding. By this 
means you will learn to address yourself to children for 
their benefit, and perhaps you may derivesome useful 
philosophemes or theorems for your own entertainment. 

III. If you happen to be in company with a merchant 
or a sailor, a farmer or a mechanic, a milk-maid or a 
spinster, lead them into a discourse of the matters of 
their own peculiar province or profession; for every one 



78 


OF CONVERSATION. 


knows, or should know, their own business best. In 
this sense a common mechanic is wiser than the philoso¬ 
pher. By this means you may gain some improvement 
in knowledge from every one you meet. 

IV. Confine not yourself always to one sort of com¬ 
pany, or to persons of the same party or opinion, either 
in matters of learning, religion, or civil life, lest, if you 
should happen to be nursed up or educated in early 
mistake, you should be confirmed and established in the 
same mistake, by conversing only with persons of the 
same sentiments. A free and general conversation with 
men of very various countries and of different parties, 
opinions, and practices, so far as it may be done safely, is 
of excellent use to undeceive us in many wrong judg¬ 
ments which we may have framed, and to lead us into 
juster thoughts. It is said, when the king of Siam, near 
China, first conversed with some European merchants, 
who sought the favour of trading on his coast, he in¬ 
quired of them some of the common appearances of 
summer and winter in their country; and when they 
told him of water growing so hard in their rivers, that 
men and horses and laden carriages passed over it, and 
that rain sometimes fell down as white and light as 
feathers, and sometimes almost as hard as stones, he 
would not believe a syllable they said; for ice, snow, and 
hail, were names and things utterly unknown to him 
and to his subjects in that hot climate: he renounced all 
traffic with such shameful liars, and would not suffer 
them to trade with his people. See here the natural 
effects of gross ignorance. 

Conversation with foreigners on various occasions, 
has a happy influence to enlarge our minds, and to set 
them free from many errors and gross prejudices we are 
ready to imbibe concerning them. Domicillus has never 
travelled five miles from his mother’s chimney, and he 
imagines all outlandish men are papishes, and worship 
nothing but a cross. Tityrus, the shepherd, was bred 
up all his life in the country, and never saw Rome; he 
fancied it to be only a huge village, and was therefore 
infinitely surprised to find such palaces, such streets, 
such glittering treasures and gay magnificence as his 


OP CONVERSATION. 79 

first journey to the city showed him, and with wonder he 
confesses his folly and mistake.* 

So Virgil introduces a poor shepherd, 

Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Meliboec, putavi 
Stultus ego huic nostra; similem, quo saepe solemus 
Pastores ovium teneros depellere foetus, &c. 

Thus Englished:— 

Fool that I was! I thought imperial Rome 
Like market-towns, where once a week we come, 

And thither drive our tender lambs from home. 

Conversation would have given Tityrus a better notion 
of Rome, though he had never happened to travel thither. 

V. In mixed company, among acquaintance and 
strangers, endeavour to learn something from all. Be 
swift to hear; but be cautious of your tongue, lest you 
betray your ignorance, and perhaps offend some of those 
who are present too. The scripture severely censures 
those who speak evil of the things they know not. Ac¬ 
quaint yourself therefore sometimes with persons and 
parties which are far distant from your common life and 
customs: this is a way whereby you may form a wiser 
opinion of men and things. Prove all things, and hold 
fast that which is good, is a divine rule, and it comes 
from the Father of light and truth. But young persons 
should practise it indeed with due limitation, and under 
the eye of their elders. 

VI. Be not frighted nor provoked at opinions different 
from your own. Some persons are so confident they 
are in the right, that they will not come within the 
hearing of any notions but their own: they canton out 
to themselves a little province in the intellectual world, 
where they fancy the light shines; and all the rest is in 
darkness. They never venture into the ocean of know¬ 
ledge, nor survey the riches of other minds, which are 
as solid and as useful, and perhaps are finer gold than 
what they ever possessed. Let not men imagine there 
is no certain truth but in the sciences which they study, 
and amongst that party in which they were born and 
educated. 

VII. Believe that it is possible to learn something 



80 


OF CONVERSATION - . 


♦ 

from persons much below yourself. We are alT short¬ 
sighted creatures; our views are also narrow and limited; 
we often see but one side of a matter, and do not extend’ 
our sight far and wide enough to reach every thing that 
has a connexion with the thing we talk of; we see but 
in part, and know but in part; therefore it is no wonder 
ive form not right conclusions; because we do not survey 
the whole of any subject or argument. Even the proud¬ 
est admirer of his own parts might find it useful to con¬ 
sult with others, though of inferior capacity and penetra¬ 
tion. We have a different prospect of the same thing 
(if I may so speak) according to the different position 
of our understandings towards it: a weaker man may 
sometimes light on notions which have escaped a wiser, 
and which the wiser man might make a happy use of, 
if he would condescend to take notice of them. 

VIII. It is of considerable advantage, when we are 
pursuing any difficult point of knowledge, to have a 
society of ingenious correspondents at hand, to whom 
w T e may propose it: for every man has something of a 
different genius and a various turn of mind, whereby 
the subject proposed will be shown in all its lights, it 
will bo represented in all its forms, and every side of 
it be turned to view, that a juster judgment may be 
framed. 

IX. To make conversation more valuable and useful, 
whether it be in a designed or accidental visit, among 
persons of the same or of different sexes, after the ne¬ 
cessary salutations are finished, and the stream of com¬ 
mon talk begins to hesitate, or runs flat and low, let 
some one person take a book which may be agreeable to- 
the whole company, and by common consent let him 
read in it ten lines, or a paragraph or two, or a few pa¬ 
ges, till some word or sentence gives an occasion for any 
of the company to offer a thought or two relating to 
that subject: interruption of the reader should be no 
blame; for conversation is the business: whether it be to 
confirm what the author says, or to improve it, to en¬ 
large upon or to correct it, to object against it, or to ask 
any question that is akin to it; and let every one that 
please add their opinion and promote the conversation* 


OF CONVERSATION. 


81 


When the discourse sinks again, or diverts to trifles, let 
him that reads pursue the page, and read on further para¬ 
graphs or pages, till some occasion is given by a word 
or sentence for a new discourse to be started, and that 
with the utmost ease and freedom. Such a method as 
this would prevent the hours of a visit from running all 
to waste; and by this means, even among scholars, they 
would seldom find occasion for that too just and bitter 
reflection, “ I have lost my time in the company of the 
learned.” 

By such a practice as this, young ladies may very 
honourably and agreeably improve their hours; while one 
applies herself to reading, the others employ their atten¬ 
tion, even among the various artifices of the needle; but 
let all of them make their occasional remarks or inqui¬ 
ries. This will guard a great deal of that precious time 
from modish trifling, impertinence, or scandal, which 
might otherwise afford matter for painful repentance. 

Observe this rule in general, whensoever it lies in 
your pow r er to lead the conversation, let it be directed to 
some profitable point of knowledge or practice, so far as 
may be done with decency; and let not the discourse and 
the hours be suffered to run loose without aim or de¬ 
sign: and when a subject is started, pass not hastily to 
another, before you have brought the present theme of 
discourse to some tolerable issue, or a joint consent to 
drop it. 

X. Attend with sincere diligence, while any one of 
the company is declaring his sense of the question pro¬ 
posed: hear the argument with patience, though it differ 
ever so much from your sentiments, for you yourself are 
very desirous to be heard with patience by others who 
differ from you. Let not your thoughts .he active and 
busy all the while to find out something to contradict, 
and by what means to oppose the speaker, especially in 
matters which are not brought to an issue. This is a 
frequent and unhappy temper and practice. You should 
rather be intent and solicitous to take up the mind and 
meaning of the speaker, zealous to seize and approve all 
that is true in his discourse; nor yet should you want 
courage to oppose where it is necessary; but let your 


82 


OF CONVERSATION. 


modesty and patience, and a friendly temper, be as con¬ 
spicuous as your zeal. 

XI. When a man speaks with much freedom and 
ease, and gives his opinion in the plainest language of 
common sense, do not presently imagine you shall' gain 
nothing by his company. Sometimes you will find a 
person who, in his conversation or his writings, delivers 
his thoughts in so plain, so easy, so familiar, and per¬ 
spicuous a manner, that you both understand and assent 
to every thing he saith, as fast as you read or hear it: 
hereupon some hearers have been ready to conclude in 
haste, Surely this man saith none but common things; I 
knew as much before, or I would have said all this my¬ 
self. This is a frequent mistake. Pellucido was a very 
great genius; when he spoke in the senate, he was wont 
to convey his ideas in so simple and happy a manner as 
to instruct and convince every hearer, and to enforce the 
conviction through the whole illustrious assembly; and 
that with so much evidence, that you would have been 
ready to wonder, that every one who spoke had not said 
the same things: but Pellucido was the only man 
that could do it; the only speaker who had attained this 
art and honour. Such is the writer of whom Horace 
would say, 

.Ut sibi quivis 

Speret idem; sudet multum, frustraque laboret 

Ausus idem. De Art, Poet, 

Smooth be your style, and plain and natural, 

To strike the sons of Wapping or Whitehall. 

While others think this easy to attain, 

Let them but try, and with their utmost pain, 

They’ll sweat and strive to imitate in vain. 

XII. If any thing seem dark in the discourse of your 
companion, so that you have not a clear idea of what is 
spoken, endeavour to obtain a clearer conception of it by 
a decent manner of inquiry. Do not charge the speaker 
with obscurity, either in his sense or his words, but 
entreat his favour to relieve your own want of penetra¬ 
tion, or to add an enlightening word or two, that you 
may take up his whole meaning. 

If difficulties arise in your mind, and constrain your 



OF CONVERSATION. 


83 


dissent to the things spoken, represent what objection 
some persons would be ready to make against the senti¬ 
ments of the speaker, without telling him you oppose. 
This manner of address carries something more modest 
and obliging in it, than to appear to raise objections of 
your own by way of contradiction to him that spoke. 

XIII. When you are forced to differ from him who 
delivers his sense on any point, yet agree as far as you 
can, ai*l represent how far you agree; and if there be 
any ro^m for it, explain the words of the speaker in such 
a sense to which you can in general assent, and so agree 
with him, or at least, by a small addition or alteration 
of his sentiments, show your own sense of things. It is 
the practice and delight of a candid hearer, to make it 
appear how unwilling he is to differ from him that 
speaks. Let the speaker know that it is nothing but 
truth constrains you to oppose him; and let that differ¬ 
ence be always expressed in few, and civil, and chosen 
words, such as may give the least offence. 

And be careful always to take Solomon’s rule with 
you, and let your correspondent fairly finish his speech 
before you reply; “ for he that answereth a matter be¬ 
fore he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” 
Prov. xviii. 13. 

A little watchfulness, care, and practice in younger 
life, will render all these things more easy, familiar, and 
natural to you, and will grow into habit.# 

XIV. As you should carry about with you a constant 
and sincere sense of your own ignorance, so you should 
not be afraid nor ashamed to confess this ignorance, by 
taking all proper opportunities to ask and inquire for 
farther information; whether it be the meaning of a 
word, the nature of a thing, the reason of a proposition, 
the custom of a nation, &e. never remain in ignorance 
for want of asking. 

Many a person had arrived at some considerable de¬ 
gree of knowledge, if he had not been full of self-con¬ 
ceit, and imagined that he had; known enough already, 
or else was ashamed to let others know that he was 
unacquainted with it. God and man are ready to teach 
the meek, the humble, and the ignorant; but he that 


84 


OF CONVERSATION. 


fancies himself to know any particular subject well, 
or that will not venture to ask a question about it, such 
a one will not put himself into the way of improvement 
by inquiry and diligence. A fool may be “ wiser in his 
own conceit than ten men who can render a reason;” 
and such a one is very likely to be an everlasting fool; 
and perhaps also it is a silly shame renders his folly in¬ 
curable. 

Stultorum incurata pudor malus ulcera celat. 

Hor. Epist. 16. Lib. i. 

In English thus: 

If fools have ulcers, and their pride conceal them, 

They must have ulcers still, for none can heal them. 

XV. Bo not too forward, especially in the younger 
part of life, to determine any question in company 
with an infallible and peremptory sentence, nor speak 
with assuming airs, and with a decisive tone of voice. 
A young man, in the presence of his elders, should 
rather hear and attend, and weigh the arguments which 
are brought for the proof or refutation of any doubtful 
proposition: and when it is your turn to speak, propose 
your thoughts rather in the way of inquiry. By this 
means your mind will be kept in a fitter temper to re¬ 
ceive truth, and you will be more ready to correct and 
improve your own sentiments, where you have not been 
too positive i^ affirming them. But if you have magis¬ 
terially decided the point, you will find a secret unwil¬ 
lingness to retract, though you should feel an inward 
conviction that yoii were in the wrong. 

XVI. Jt is granted, indeed, that a season may hap¬ 
pen, when some bold pretender to science may assume 
haughty and positive airs, to assert and vindicate a gross 
and dangerous error, or to renounce and vilify some 
very important truth: and if he has a popular talent of 
talking, and there be no remonstrance made against him, 
the company may be tempted too easily to give their 
assent to the imprudence and infallibility of the pre- 
sumer. They may imagine a proposition so much vili¬ 
fied can never be true, and that a doctrine which is so 
boldly censured and renounced can never be defended. 


OP CONVERSATION. 


85 


Weak minds are too ready to persuade themselves, that 
a man would never talk with so much assurance unless 
he were certainly in the right, and co^ld well maintain 
and prove what he said. By this means truth itself is 
in danger of being betrayed or lost, if there be no oppo¬ 
sition made to such a pretending talker. 

Now in such a case, even a wise and a modest man 
may assume airs too, and repel insolence with its own 
weapons. There is a time, as Solomon, the wisest of 
men, teaches us, “ when a fool should be answered ac¬ 
cording to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit,” 
and lest others too easily yield u'p their faith and reason 
to his imperious dictates. Courage and positivity are 
never more necessary than on such an occasion. But 
it is good to join some argument with them of real and 
convincing force, and let it be strongly pronounced too. 

When such a resistance is made, you shall find some 
of those bold talkers will draw in their horns, when 
v their fierce and feeble pushes against truth and reason 
are repelled with pushing and confidence. It is pity in¬ 
deed that truth should ever need such sort of defences; 
but we know that a triumphant assurance hath some¬ 
times supported gross falsehoods, and a whole company 
have been captivated to error by this means, till some 
man with equal assurance has rescued them. It is pity 
that any momentous point of doctrine should happen 
to fall under such reproaches, and require such a mode 
of vindication: though if I happen to hear it, I ought 
not to turn my back and to sneak off in silence, and 
leave the truth to lie baffled, bleeding, and slain. Yet 
I must confess, I should be glad to have no occasion ever 
given me to fight with any man at this sort of weapons, 
even though i should be so happy as to silence his in¬ 
solence and to obtain an evident victory. 

XVII. Be not fond of disputing every thing pro and 
con, nor indulge yourself to show your talent of attack¬ 
ing and defending. A logic which teaches nothing else 
is little worth. This temper and practice will lead you 
just so far out of the way of knowledge, and divert your 
honest inquiry after the truth which is debated or sought. 
In set disputes, every little straw is often laid hold on 
8 


86 


OF»CONVERSATIOV. 


to support our own cause; every thing that can be drawn 
in any way to give colour to our argument is advanced, 
and that perhaps with vanity and ostentation. This 
puts the mind out of a proper posture to seek and re¬ 
ceive the truth. 

XVIII. Do not bring a warm party spirit into a free 
conversation which is designed for mutual improvement 
in the search of truth. Take heed of allowing yourself 
in those self-satisfied assurances which keep the doors 
of the understanding barred fast against the admission 
of any new sentiments. Let your soul be ever ready to 
hearken to farther discoveries, from a constant $tnd rul¬ 
ing consciousness of our present fallible and imperfect 
state; and make it appear to your friends, that it is no 
hard task to you to learn and pronounce those little 
words, “ I was mistaken,” how hard soever it be for the 
bulk of mankind to pronounce them. 

XIX. As you may sometimes raise inquiries for your 
own instruction and improvement, and draw out the 
learning,, wisdom, and fine sentiments of your friends, 
who perhaps may be too reserved or modest; so, at other 
times, if you perceive a person unskilful in the matter 
of debate, you may, by questions aptly proposed in the 
Socratic method, lead him into a clearer knowledge of 
the subject: then you become his instructor, in such a 
manner as may not appear to make yourself his superior. 

XX. Take heed of affecting always to shine in com¬ 
pany above the rest, and to display the riches of your 
own understanding or your oratory, as though you would 
render yourself admirable to all that are present. This 
is seldom well taken in polite company; much less should 
you use such forms of speech as should insinuate the 
ignorance or dulness of those with whom you converse. 

XXI. Though you should not affect to flourish in a 
copious harangue and a diffusive style in company, yet 
neither should you rudely interrupt and reproach him 
that happens to use it: but when he has done speaking, 
reduce his sentiments into a more contracted form; not 
with a show of correcting, but as one who is doubtful 
whether you hit upon his true sense or no. Thus matters 
may he brought more easily from a wild confusion into 


OF CONVERSATION. 


87 


a single point, questions may be sooner determined, and 
difficulties more easily removed. 

XXII. Be not so ready to charge ignorance, prejudice, 
and mistake upon others, as you are to suspect yourself 
of it: and in order to show how free you are from preju¬ 
dices, learn to bear contradiction with patience; let it be 
easy to you to hear your own opinion strongly opposed, 
especially in matters which are doubtful and disputable, 
amongst men of sobriety and virtue. Give a patient 
hearing to arguments on all sides; otherwise, you give 
the company occasion to suspect that it is not the evi¬ 
dence of truth has led you into this opinion, but some 
lazy anticipation of judgment, some beloved presumption, 
some long and rash possession of a party scheme, in 
which you desire to rest undisturbed. If your assent 
has been established upon just and sufficient grounds, 
why should you be afraid to let the truth be put to the 
trial of argument? 

XXIII. Banish utterly out of all conversation, and 
especially out of all learned and intellectual conference, 
every thing that tends to provoke passion or raise a fire 
in the blood. Let no sharp language, no noisy excla¬ 
mations, no sarcasms, or biting jests be heard among 
you; no perverse or invidious consequences be drawn 
from each other’s opinions, and imputed to the person: 
let there be no wilful perversion of another’s meaning; 
no sudden seizure of a lapsed syllable to play upon it, 
nor any abused construction of an innocent mistake: 
suffer not your tongue to insult a modest opponent that 
beigns to yield; let there be no crowing and triumph, 
even where there is evident victory on your side. All 
these things are enemies to friendship, and the ruin of 
free conversation. The impartial search of truth re¬ 
quires all calmness and serenity, all temper and candour; 
mutual instructions can never be attained in the midst 
of passion, pride, and clamour, unless we suppose, in the 
midst of such a scene, there is a loud and penetrating 
lecture read by both sides, on the folly and shameful in¬ 
firmities of human nature. 

XXIV. Whensoever, therefore, any unhappy word 
shall arise in company, that might give you a reasonable 


88 


OF CONVERSATION. 


disgust, quash the rising resentment, be it ever so just, 
and command your soul and your tongue into silence, 
lest you cancel the hopes of all improvement for that 
hour, and transform the learned conversation into the 
mean and vulgar form of reproaches and railing. The 
man who began to break the peace in such a society, 
will fall under the shame and conviction of such a silent 
reproof, if he has any thing ingenuous about him. If 
this should not be sufficient, let a grave admonition, or 
a soft and gentle turn of wit, with an air of pleasantry, 
give the warm disputer an occasion to stop the progress 
of his indecent fire, if not to retract the indecency and 
quench the flame. 

XXV. Inure yourself to a candid and obliging manner 
in your conversation, and acquire the art of pleasing ad¬ 
dress, even when you teach, as well as when you learn; 
and when you oppose, as well as when you assert or 
prove. This degree of politeness is not to be attained 
without a diligent attention to such kind of directions 
as are here laid down, and a frequent exercise and prac¬ 
tice of them. 

XXVI. If you would know what sort of companions 
you should select for the cultivation and advantage of 
the mind, the general rule is, choose such as, by their 
brightness of parts, and their diligence in study, or by 
their superior advancement in learning, or peculiar ex¬ 
cellency in any art, science, or accomplishment, divine 
or human, may be capable of administering to Jour im¬ 
provement; and be sure to maintain and keep some due 
regard to their moral character always, lest while you 
wander in quest of intellectual gain, you fall into the 
contagion of irreligion and vice. No wise man can 
venture into a house infected with the plague, in order 
to see the finest collections of any virtuoso in Europe. 

XXVII. Nor is it every sober person of your acquaint¬ 
ance, no, nor every man of bright parts, or rich in learn- 
.ng, that is fit to engage in free conversation for the in¬ 
quiry after truth. Let a person have ever so illustrious 
talents, yet he is not a proper associate for such a pur¬ 
pose, if he lie under any of the following infirmities: 

1. If he be exceedingly reserved, and hath eithet 


OF CONVERSATION. 


89 


no inclination to discourse, or no tolerable capacity of 
speech and language for the communication of his senti¬ 
ments. 

2. If le be haughty and proud of his knowledge, im¬ 
perious n his airs, and is always fond of imposing his 
sentiments on all the company. 

3. If he be positive and dogmatical in his own opin¬ 
ions, and will dispute to the end; if he will resist the 
brightest evidence of truth, rather than suffer himself 
to be overcome, or jdeld to the plainest and strongest 
reasonings. 

4. If he be one who always affects to outshine all the 
company, and delights to hear himself talk and flourish 
upon a subject, and make long harangues, while the rest 
must be all silent and attentive. 

6. If he be a person of whiffling and unsteady turn of 
mind, who cannot keep close to p, point of controversy, 
but wanders from it perpetually, and is always solicitous 
to say something, whether it be pertinent to the question 
or no. 

6. If he be fretful and peevish, and given to resent¬ 
ment upon all occasions: if he knows not how to bear 
contradiction, or is ready to take things in a wrong 
sense; if he is swift to feel a supposed offence, or to im¬ 
agine himself affronted, and then break out into a sudden 
passion, or retain silent and sullen wrath. 

7. If he affect wit on all occasions, and is full of his 
conceits and puns, quirks or quibbles, jests and repartees; 
these may agreeably entertain and animate an hour of 
mirth, but they have no place in the search after truth. 

8. If he carry always about him a sort of craft, and 
cunning, and disguise, and act rather like a spy than a 
friend. Have a care of such a one ks will make an ill 
use of freedom in conversation, and immediately charge 
heresy upon you, when you happen to differ from those 
sentiments which authority or custom has established. 

In short, you should avoid the man, in such select 
conversation, who practises any thing that is unbecom¬ 
ing the character of a sincere, free, and open searcher 
after truth. 

Now, though you may pay all the relative duties of 
8 * 


90 


OF CONVERSATION. 


life to persons of these unhappy qualifications, and treat 
them with decency and love, so far as religion and hu¬ 
manity oblige you, yet take care of entering into a free 
debate on matters of truth or falsehood in their company, 
and especially about the principles of religion. I con¬ 
fess, if a person of such a temper happens to judge and 
talk well on such a subject, you may hear him with at¬ 
tention, and derive what profit you can from his dis¬ 
course; but he is by no means to be chosen for a free 
conference in matters of learning and knowledge. 

XXVIII. While I would persuade you to beware of 
such persons, and abstain from too much freedom of 
discourse amongst them, it is very natural to infer that 
you should watch against the working of these evil 
qualities in your own breast, if you happen to be tainted 
with any of them yourself. Men of learning and inge¬ 
nuity will justly avoid your acquaintance, when they 
find such an unhappy and unsocial temper prevailing 
in you. 

XXIX. To conclude, when you retire from company, 
then converse with yourself in solitude, and inquire what 
you have learned for the improvement of your under¬ 
standing, or for the rectifying your inclinations, for the 
increase of your virtues, or the ameliorating your con¬ 
duct and behaviour in any future parts of life. If you 
have seen some of your company candid, modest, hum¬ 
ble in their manner, wise and sagacious, just and pious 
in their sentiments, polite and graceful, as well as clear 
and strong in their expression, and universally accepta¬ 
ble and lovely in their behaviour, endeavour to impress 
the idea of all these upon your memory, and treasure 
them up for your imitation. 

XXX. If the laws of reason, decency, and civility, have 
not been well observed amongst your associates, take 
notice of those defects for your own improvement: and 
from every occurrence of this kind remark something 

o imitate or to avoid, in elegant, polite, and useful con¬ 
versation. Perhaps you will find that some persons 
present have really displeased the company, by an ex¬ 
cessive and too visible an affectation to please, i. e. by 
giving loose to servile flattery or promiscuous praise; 


OF CONVERSATION. 


91 


while others were as ready to oppose and contradict every 
thing that was said. Some have deserved just censure 
for a morose and affected taciturnity; and others have 
been anxious and careful lest their silence should be in¬ 
terpreted a want of sense, and therefore they have ven¬ 
tured to make speeches, though they had nothing to 
say which was worth hearing. Perhaps you will ob¬ 
serve that one was ingenious in his thoughts, and bright 
in his language, but he was so topful of himself that ho 
let it spill on all the company; that he spoke well indeed, 
but that he spoke too long, and did not allow equal 
liberty or time to his associates. You will remark that 
another was full charged, to let out his words before his 
friend had done speaking, or impatient of the least oppo¬ 
sition to any thing he said. You will remember that 
some persons have talked at large, and with great con¬ 
fidence, of things which they understood not, and 
others counted every thing tedious and intolerable that 
was spoken upon subjects out of their sphere, and they 
would fain confine the conference entirely within the 
limits of their own narrow knowledge and study. The 
errors of conversation are almost infinite. 

XXXI. By a review of such irregularities as these, 
you may learn to avoid those follies and pieces of ill 
conduct which spoil good conversation, or make it less 
agreeable and less useful; and by degrees you will ac¬ 
quire that delightful and easy manner of address and be¬ 
haviour in all useful correspondencies, which may ren¬ 
der your company every where desired and beloved; and 
at the same time, among the best of your companions, 
you may make the highest improvement, in your own 
intellectual acquisitions, that the discourse of mortal 
creatures will allow, under all our disadvantages in this 
sorry state of mortality. But there is a day coming 
when we shall be seized away from this lower class in 
the school of knowledge, where we labour under the 
many dangers and darknesses, the errors and the incum¬ 
brances of flesh and blood, and our conversation shall be 
with angels and more illuminated spirits, in the upper 
regions of the universe. 


92 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


CHAPTER X. 

OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 

I. Under the general head of conversation for the 
improvement of the mind, we may rank the practice of 
disputing; that is, when two or more persons appear to 
maintain different sentiments, and defend their own or 
oppose the other’s opinion, in alternate discourse, by some 
methods of argument. 

II. As these disputes often arise in good earnest, 
where the two contenders do really believe the different 
propositions which they support; so sometimes they are 
appointed as mere trials of skill in academies or schools 
by the students; sometimes they are practised, and that 
with apparent fervour, in courts of judicature by law¬ 
yers, in order to gain the fees of their different clients, 
while both sides perhaps are really of the same senti¬ 
ment with regard to the cause which is tried. 

III. In common conversation, disputes are often man¬ 
aged without any forms of regularity or order, and they 
turn to good or evil purposes, chiefly according to the 
temper of the disputants. They may sometimes be suc¬ 
cessful to search out truth, sometimes effectual to main¬ 
tain truth, and convince the mistaken; but at other times 
a dispute is a mere scene of battle in order to victory 
and vain triumph. 

IV. There aro some few general rules which should 

be observed in all debates whatsoever, if we would find 
out truth by them, or convince a friend of his error, even 
though they be not managed according to any settled 
forms of disputation; and as there are almost as many 
opinions and judgments of things as there are persons, 
so when several persons happen to meet and confer to¬ 
gether upon any subject, they are ready to'declare their 
different sentiments, and support them by such reason¬ 
ings as they are capable of. This is called debating or 
disputing, as is above described. ^ 

V When persons begin a debate, they should always 
take care that they are agreed in some general princi¬ 
ples or propositions, which either more nearly or remote- 


OP PISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


93 


ly affect the question in hand; for otherwise they have 
no foundation or hope of convincing each other; they 
must have some common ground to stand upon, while 
they maintain the contest. 

When they find they agree in some remote proposi¬ 
tions, then let them search farther, and inquire how near 
they approach to each other’s sentiments, and whatso¬ 
ever propositions they agree in, let these lay a founda 
tion for the mutual hope of conviction. Hereby you 
will be prevented from running at every turn to some 
original and remote propositions and axioms, which 
practice both entangles and prolongs dispute. As ibr 
instance, if there was a debate proposed betwixt a pro- 
testant and a papist, whether there be such a place as 
Purgatory? Let them remember that they both agree in 
this point, that Christ has made satisfaction or atone¬ 
ment for sin, and upon this ground let them both stand, 
while they search out the controverted doctrine of Pur¬ 
gatory by way of conference or debate. 

VI. The question should be cleared from all doubtful 
terms and needless additions; and all things that belong 
to the question should be expressed in plain and intelli¬ 
gible language. This is so necessary a thing, that with¬ 
out it men will be exposed to such sort of ridiculous con¬ 
tests as was found one day between the two unlearned 
combatants Sartor and Sutor, who assaulted and defend¬ 
ed the doctrine of transubst&ntiation with much zeal 
and violence: but Latino happening to come into their 
company, and inquiring the subject of their dispute, 
asked each of them what he meant by that long hard 
word transubstantiation. Sutor readily informed him 
that he understood—bowing at the name of Jesus: but 
Sartor assured him that he meant nothing but bowing 
at the high altar. “No winder, then,” said Latino, 
“ that you cannot agree when you neither understand 
one another, nor the word about which you contend.” 
I think the whole family of the Sartors and Sutors 
would be wiser if they avoided such kind of debates till 
they understood the terms better. But alas! even their 
wives carry on such conferences: the other day one was 
heard in the street explaining to her less learned neigh- 


94 


OP DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


hour the meaning of metaphysical science; and she as¬ 
sured her, that as physics were medicines for the body, 
so metaphysics were physics for the soul; upon this they 
went on to dispute the point—how far the divine excel¬ 
led the doctor. 

Auditum admissi risum teneatis, amici? 

Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? 

Can it be faulty to repeat 
A dialogue that walk’d the street? 

Or can my gravest friends forbear 
A laugh, when such disputes they hear? 

VII. And not only the sense and meaning of the 
words used in the question should be settled and adjust¬ 
ed between the disputants, but the precise point of in¬ 
quiry should be distinctly fixed; the question in debate 
should be limited precisely to its special extent, or de¬ 
clared to be taken in its more general sense. As for in¬ 
stance, if two men are contending whether civil govern¬ 
ment be of divine right or not: here it must be observed, 
the question is not whether monarchy in one man, or a 
republic in multitudes of the people, or an aristocracy 
in a few of the chief, is appointed of God as necessary; 
but whether civil government in its most general sense, 
or in any form whatsoever, is derived from the will and 
appointment of God. Again, the point of inquiry should 
be limited further. Thus the question is, not whether 
government comes from the will of God by the light of 
divine revelation, for that is granted; but whether it is 
derived from the will of God by the light of reason too. 
This sort of specification or limitation of the question 
hinders and prevents the disputants from wandering 
away from the precise point of inquiry. 

It is this trifling humour or dishonest artifice of chang¬ 
ing the question, and wandering away from the first 
point of debate, which gives endless length to disputes, 
and causes both disputants to part without any satisfac¬ 
tion. And one chief occasion of it is this: when one of 
the combatants feels his cause run low and fail, and is 
just ready to be confuted and demolished, he is tempted 
to step aside to avoid the blow, and betakes him to a dif¬ 
ferent question: thus, if his adversary be not well aware 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


95 


of him, he begins to entrench himself in a new fastness, 
and holds out the siege with a new artillery of thoughts 
and words. It is the pride of inan which is the spring 
of this evil, and an unwillingness to yield up their own 
opinions even to be overcome by truth itself. 

VIII. Keep this always therefore upon your mind as 
an everlasting rule of conduct in your debates to find 
out truth, that a resolute design, or even a warm affec¬ 
tation of victory, is the bane of all real improvement, 
and an effectual bar against the admission of the truth 
which you profess to seek. This works with a secret, 
but a powerful and mischievous influence in every dis¬ 
pute, unless we are much upon our guard. It appears 
in frequent conversation; every age, every sex, and each 
party of mankind, are so fond of being in the right, that 
they know not how to renounce this unhappy prejudice, 
this vain love of victory. 

When truth with bright evidence is ready to break in 
upon a disputant, and to overcome his objections and 
mistakes, how swift and ready is the mind to engage 
wit and fancy, craft and subtlety, to cloud and perplex 
and puzzle the truth, if possible! How eager is he to 
throw in some impertinent question to divert from the 
main subject! How swift to take hold of some occasion¬ 
al word, thereby to lead the discourse off from the point 
in hand! So much afraid is human nature of parting with 
its errors, and being overcome by truth. Just thus a 
hunted hare calls up all the shifts that nature hath 
taught her: she treads back her mazes, crosses and con¬ 
founds her former track, and uses all possible methods 
to divert the scent, when she is in danger of being seiz¬ 
ed and taken. Let puss practise what nature teaches; 
but would one imagine that any rational being should 
take sach pains to avoid truth, and to escape the im¬ 
provement of its understanding?, 

IX. When you come to a dispute in order to find out 
truth, do not presume that you are certainly possessed 
of it beforehand. Enter the debate with a sincere design 
of yielding to reason, on which side soever it appears. 
Use no subtle arts to cloud and entangle the question; 
hide not yourseffin doubtful words and phrases; do not 


96 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


affect little shifts and subterfuges to avoid the force of 
an argument; take a generous pleasure to espy the first 
rising beams of truth, though it be on the side of your 
opponent; endeavour to«pemove the little obscurities that 
hang about it, and suffer and encourage it to break out 
into open and convincing light; that while your opponent 
perhaps may gain the better of your reasonings, yet you 
yourself may triumph over error; and I am sure that is 
a much more valuable acquisition and victory. 

X. Watch narrowly in every dispute, that your oppo¬ 
nent does not lead you unwarily to grant some principle 
of the proposition, which will bring with it a fatal con¬ 
sequence, and lead you insensibly into his sentiment, 
though it be far astray from the truth; and by this wrong 
step you will be, as it were, plunged into dangerous 
errors before you are aware. Polonides, in free conver¬ 
sation, led Incauto to agree with him in this plain pro¬ 
position: That the blessed God has too much justice in 
any case to punish* any being who is in itself innocent: 
till he not only allowed it with an unthinking alacrity, 
but asserted it in most universal and unguarded terms. 
A little after, Polonides came in discourse to commend 
the virtues, the innocence, and the piety of our blessed 
Saviour; and thence inferred, it was impossible that God 
should ever punish so holy a person, who was never 
guilty of any crime: then Incauto espied the snare, and 
found himself robbed and defrauded of the great doctrine 
of the atonement by the death of Christ, upon which 
he had placed his immortal hopes according to the gos¬ 
pel. This taught him to bethink himself what a dan¬ 
gerous concession he had made in so universal a manner, 
that God would never punish any being who was inno¬ 
cent; and he saw it needful to recall his words, or to ex¬ 
plain them better, by adding this restriction, or limita¬ 
tion, viz. unless this innocent being were some way in¬ 
volved in another’s sin v or stood as a voluntary surety 
for the guilty: by this limitation he secured the great 
and blessed doctrine of the sacrifice of Christ for the sins 

* The word punish here signifies, to bring some natural evil upon 
a person on account of moral evil done. 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 97 

of men, and learnt to be more cautious in his conces¬ 
sions for the time to come. 

Two months ago Fatalio had almost tepipted his 
friend Fidens to leave off prayer, and to abandon his 
dependence on the providence of God in the common 
affairs of life, by obtaining of him a concession of the 
like kind. Is it not evident to reason, says Fatalio, that 
God’s immense scheme of transactions in the universe 
was contrived and determined long before you and I 
were born? Can you imagine, my dear Fidens, that the 
blessed God changes his original contrivances, and 
makes new interruptions in the course of them, so .often 
as you and I want his aid, to prevent the little accidents 
of life, or to guard us from them? Can you suffer your¬ 
self to be persuaded that the great Creator of this world 
takes care to support a bridge which was quite rotten, 
and to make it stand firm a few minutes longer till you 
had rode over it? Or, will he uphold a falling tower, 
while we two were passing by it, that such worms as 
you and I are might escape the ruin? 

But you say, you prayed for his protection in the 
morning, and he certainly hears prayer. I grant he 
hears it: but are you so fond and weak, said he, as to 
suppose that the universal Lord of all had such a regard 
to a word or two of your breath, as to make alterations 
in his own eternal scheme upon that account. Nor is 
there any other way whereby his providence can pro- 
serve you in answer to prayer, but by creating such per¬ 
petual interruptions and changes in his own conduct, 
according to your daily behaviour. 

I acknowledge, says Fidens, there is no other way to 
secure the doctrine of divine providence in all these 
common affairs; and therefore I begin to doubt whether 
God does or ever will exert himself so particularly in 
our little concerns. 

Have a care, good Fidens, that you yield not too fan 
take heed lest you have granted too much to Fatalio. 
Pray let me ask of you, could not the great God, who 
grasps and surveys all future and distant things in one 
single view, could not he from the beginning foresee your 
morning prayer for his protection, and appoint all second 

9 


98 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


causes to concur for the support of that crazy bridge, or 
to make that old tower stand firm till you had escaped 
the danger? Or could not he cause all the mediums to 
work so as to make it fall before you came near it? Can 
he not appoint all his own transactions in the universe, 
and every event in the natural world, in a way of per¬ 
fect correspondence with his own foreknowledge of all' 
the events, actions, and appearances of the moral world 
in every part of it? Can he not direct every thing in 
nature, which is but his servant, to act in perfect agree* 
ment with his eternal prescience of our sins, or of our 
piety? And hereby all the glory of providence, and our 
necessary dependence upon it by faith and prayer, are 
as well secured, as if he interposed to alter his own 
scheme every moment. 

Let me ask again; did not he in his own counsels or 
decrees appoint thunders and lightnings and earth¬ 
quakes, to burn up and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, 
and turn them into a dead sea, just at the time when 
the iniquities of those cities w’ere raised to their supremo 
height? Did he not ordain the fountains of the deep to 
be broken up, and overwhelming rains to fall from 
heaven, just when a guilty world deserved to be drown¬ 
ed; while he took care of the security of righteous Noah, 
by an ark which should float upon that very deluge of 
waters? Tlius he can punish the criminal when he 
pleases, and reward the devout worshipper in the proper 
season by his original and eternal schemes of appoint¬ 
ment, as well as if he interposed every moment anew. 
Take heed, Fidens, that you be not tempted away, by 
such sophisms of Fatalio, to withhold prayer from God, 
and to renounce your faith in his providence. 

Remember this short and plain caution of the subtle 
errors of men. Let a snake but once thrust in his head 
at some small unguarded fold of your garment, and he 
will insensibly and unavoidably wind his whole body into 
your bosom, and give you a pernicious wound. 

XI. On the other hand, when you have found youi 
opponent make any such concession as may turn to your 
real advantage in maintaining the truth, be wise and 
watchful to < bserve it, and make a happy improvement 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


99 


of it. Rhapsodus has taken a great deal of pains to de¬ 
tract from the honour of Christianity, by sly insinua¬ 
tions that the sacred writers are perpetually promoting 
virtue and piety by promises and threatenings; whereas 
neither the fear of future punishment, nor the hope of 
future reward, can possibly be called good affections, or 
such as are the acknowledged springs and sources of all 
actions truly good. He adds further, that this fear, or 
this hope, cannot consist in reality with virtue or goodness, 
if it either stands as essential to any moral performance 
or as a considerable motive to any good action; and thus 
he would fain lead Christians to be ashamed of the gos¬ 
pel of Christ, because of its future and eternal promises 
and threatenings, as being inconsistent with his notion 
of virtue; for he supposes virtue should be so beloved and 
practised for the sake of its own beauty and loveliness, 
that all other motives arising from rewards or punish¬ 
ments, fear or hope, do really take away just so much 
from the very nature of virtue as their influence reaches 
to; and no part of those good practices are really valua¬ 
ble, but what arises from the mere love of virtue itself, 
without any regard to punishment or reward. 

But observe, in two pages afterwards, he grants that 
—this principle of fear of future punishment, and hope 
of future reward, how mercenary and servile soever it 
may be accounted, is yet in many circumstances a great 
advantage, security, and support to virtue; especially 
where there is danger of the violence of rage or lust, or 
any counter-working passion to control and overcome 
the good affections of the mind. 

Now the rule and the practice of Christianity, or the 
gospel, as it is closely connected with future rewards 
and punishments, may be well supported by this con¬ 
cession. Pray, Rhapsodus, tell me, if every man in this 
present life, by the violence of some counter-working 
passion, may not have his good affections to virtue con¬ 
trolled or overcome? May not, therefore, his eternal 
fears and hopes be a great advantage, security, and sup¬ 
port to virtue in so dangerous a state and situation, as 
our journey through this world towards a better? And 


100 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


this is all that the defence of Christianity necessarily 
requires. 

And yet further let me ask our rhapsodist, If you have 
nothing else, sir, but the beauty and excellency and 
loveliness of virtue to preach and flourish upon, before 
such sorry and degenerate creatures as the bulk of man¬ 
kind are, and you have no future rewards or punish¬ 
ments with which to address their hopes and fears, how 
many of these vicious wretches will you ever reclaim 
from all their variety of profaneness, intemperance, and 
madness? How many have you ever actually reclaimed 
by this smooth soft method, and these fine words? What 
has all that reasoning and rhetoric done which have 
been displayed by your predecessors the heathen moral¬ 
ists, upon this excellency and beauty of virtue? What 
has it been able to do towards the reforming of a sinful 
world? Perhaps now and then a man of better natural 
mould has been a little refined, and perhaps also there 
may have been here and there a man restrained or re¬ 
covered from injustice or knavery, from drunkenness 
and lewdness, and vile debaucheries, by this fair reason¬ 
ing and philosophy: but have the passions of revenge 
and envy, of ambition and pride, and the inward secret 
vices of the mind been mortified merely by this philoso¬ 
phical language? Have any of these men been made 
new creatures, men of real piety and love to God? 

Go dress up all the virtues of human nature in all the 
beauties of your oratory, and declaim aloud on the 
praise of social virtue, and the amiable qualities of good¬ 
ness, till your heart or your lungs ache, among the looser 
herds of mankind, and you will ever find, as your hea¬ 
then fathers have done before, that the wild passions and 
appetites of men are too violent to be restrained by such 
mild and silken language. You may as well build up 
a fence of straw and feathers to resist a cannon ball, or 
try to quench a flaming granado with a shell of fair 
water, as hope to succeed in these attempts. But an 
eternal heaven and an eternal hell carry divine force 
and power with them: this doctrine, from the mouth of 
Christian preachers, has begun the reformation of multi¬ 
tudes; this gospel has recovered thousands among the 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


101 


nations from iniquity and death. They have been awa¬ 
kened by these awful scenes to begin religion, and after¬ 
wards their virtue has improved itself into superior and 
more refined principles and habits by divine grace, and 
risen to high and eminent degrees, though not to a con¬ 
summate state. The blessed God knows human nature 
much better than Rhapsodus doth, and has throughout 
his word appointed a more proper and more effectual 
method of address to it by the passions of hope and fear, 
by punishments and rewards. 

If you read on four pages further in these writings, 
you will find the author makes another concession. He 
allows that the master of a family, using proper rewards 
and gentle punishments towards his children, teaches 
them goodness, and by this help instructs them in a virtue 
which they afterwards practise upon other grounds, and 
without thinking of a penalty or a bribe; and this, says 
he, is what we call a liberal education and a liberal 
service. 

This new concession of that author may also be very 
happily improved in favour of Christianity.—What are 
the best of men in this life? They are by no means per¬ 
fect in virtue: we are all but children here under the 
great master of the family, and he is pleased, by hopes 
and fears, by mercies and corrections, to instruct us in 
virtue, and to conduct us onward towards the sublimer 
and more perfect practice of it in the future world, 
where it shall be performed, as in his own language, 
perhaps—without thinking of penalties or bribes. And 
since he hath allowed that this conduct may be called a 
liberal education, and a liberal service, let Christianity 
then be indulged the title of a liberal education also, 
and it is admirably fitted for such frail and sinful crea¬ 
tures, while they are training up towards the sublimer 
virtues of the heavenly state. 

XII. When you are engaged in a dispute with a per¬ 
son of very different principles from yourself, and you 
cannot find any ready way to prevail with him to em¬ 
brace the truth by principles which you both freely ac¬ 
knowledge, you may fairly make use of his own princi- 
9 * 


102 


OF DISPUTES IN GENERAL. 


pies to show him his mistake, and thus convince or si¬ 
lence him from his own concessions. 

If your opponent should be a Stoic philosopher or a 
Jew, you may pursue your argument in defence of some 
Christian doctrine or duty against such a disputant, by 
axioms or laws borrowed either from Zeno or Moses. 
And though you do not enter into the inquiry how ma¬ 
ny of the laws of Moses are abrogated, or whether Ze¬ 
no was right or wrong in his philosophy, yet if from 
the principles and concessions of your opponent, you 
can support your argument for the gospel of Christ, this 
has been always counted a fair treatment of an adver¬ 
sary, and it is called argumentum ad hominem , or ratio 
ex concessis. St. Paul sometimes makes use of this sort 
of disputation, when he talks with Jews or heathen phi¬ 
losophers; and at last he silences if not convinces them: 
which is sometimes necessary to be done against an ob¬ 
stinate and clamorous adversary, that just honour might 
be paid to truths which he knew were divine, and that 
the only true doctrine of salvatoin might be confirmed 
and propagated among sinful and dying men. 

XIII. Yetgreat care must be taken, lest your debates 
break in upon your passions, and awaken them to take 
part in the controversy. When the opponent pushes 
hard, and gives just and mortal wounds to ourownopin- 
ons, our passions are very apt to feel the strokes, and to 
rise in resentment and defence. Self is so mingled with 
the sentiments which we have chosen, and has such a 
tender feeling of all the opposition which is made to 
them, that personal brawls are very ready to come in as 
seconds, to succeed and finish the dispute of opinions. 
Then noise, and clamour, and folly, appear in all their 
shapes, and chase reason and truth out of sight. 

How unhappy is the case of frail and wretched man¬ 
kind in this dark or dusky state of strong passion and 
glimmering reason! How ready are we, when our pas¬ 
sions are engaged in the dispute, to consider more what 
loads of nonsense and reproach we can lay upon our op¬ 
ponent, than what reason and truth require in the con¬ 
troversy itself! Dismal are the consequences mankind 
are too often involved in by this evil principle; it is this 


THE SOCRATICAL WAT OF DISPUTATION. 103 


common and dangerous practice that carries the heart 
aside from all that is fair and honest in our search after 
truth, or the propagation of it in the world. One would 
wish from one’s very soul that none of the Christian fa¬ 
thers had been guilty of such follies as these. 

But St. Jerome fairly confesses this evil principle, in 
his apology for himself to Pammachius, “ that he had 
not so much regarded what was exactly to be spoken in 
the controversy he had in hand, as what was fit to lay a 
load on Jovinian.” And, indeed, I fear this was the vile 
custom of many of the writers even in the church af¬ 
fairs of those times. But it will be a double scandal 
upon us, in our more enlightened age, if we will allow 
ourselves in a conduct so criminal and dishonest. Hap¬ 
py souls, who keep such a sacred dominion over their 
inferior and animal powers, and all the influences of 
pride and secular interest, that the sensitive tumults, or 
these vicious influences, never rise to disturb the supe¬ 
rior and better operations of the reasoning mind! 

XIV. These general directions are necessary, or at 
least useful, in all debates whatsoever, whether they 
arise in occasional conversation, or are appointed at any 
certain time or place: whether they are managed with 
or without any formal rules to govern them. But there 
are three sorts of disputation in which there are some 
forms and orders observed, and which are distinguished 
by these three names, viz. Socratic, Forensic, and Aca¬ 
demic, i. e. the disputes of the schools. 

Concerning each of these it may not be improper to 
discourse a little, anjJ give a few particular directions or 
remarks about them. 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE SOCRATICAL WAY OF DISPUTATION. 

I. This method of dispute derives its name from Soc¬ 
rates, by whom it was practised, and by other philoso¬ 
phers in his age, long before Aristotle invented the par- 



104 THE SOCRATICAL WAT OF DISPUTATION. 


ticular forms of syllogism in mood and figure, which are 
now used in scholastic disputations. 

11 . The Socratical way is managed by questions and 
answers in such a manner as this, viz. If I would lead a 
person into the belief of a heaven or hell, or a future 
* state of rewards and punishments, I might begin in some 
such manner of inquiry, and suppose the most obvious 
and easy answers. 

Q. Does not God govern the world? 

A. Surely he that made it governs it. 

Q. Is not God both a good and a righteous gover¬ 
nor? 

A. Both these characters doubtless belong to him. 

Q. What is the true notion of a good and righteous 
governor? 

A. That he punishes the wicked and rewards the 
good. 

Q. Are the good always rewarded in this life? 

A. No surely; for many virtuous men are miserable 
here, and greatly afflicted. 

Q. Are the wicked always punished in this life? 

A. No certainly; for many of them live without sor¬ 
row, and some of the vilest of men are often raised to 
great riches and honour. 

Q. Wherein then doth God make it appear that he is 
good and righteous? 

A. I own there is but little appearance of it on earth. 

Q. Will there not be a time, then, when the tables 
shall be turned, and the scene of things changed, since 
God governs mankind righteously? „ 

A. Doubtless there must be a proper time, wherein 
God will make that goodness and that righteousness to 
appear. 

Q. If this be not before their death, how can it be 
done? 

A. I can think of no other way but by supposing man 
to have some existence after this life. 

Q. Are you not convinced then that there must be a 
state of reward and punishment after death? 

A. Yes surely; I now see plainly, that the goodness 


OF DISPUTATION. 


105 


and righteousness of God, as governor of the world, ne¬ 
cessarily require it. 

III. Now the advantages of this method are very con¬ 
siderable. 

1. It represents the form of a dialogue or common 

conversation, which is a much more easy, more pleasant, 
and a more sprightly way of instruction, and more fit 
to excite the attention, and sharpen the penetration of 
the learner, than solitary reading or silent attention to 
a lecture. Man, being a sociable creature, delights more 
in conversation, and learns better this way, if it could 
always be wisely and happily practised. * 

2. This method hath something very obliging in it, and 
carries a very humble and condescending air, when he 
that instructs seems to be the inquirer, and seeks infor¬ 
mation from him who learns. 

3. It leads the learner into the knowledge of truth a£ 
it were by his own invention, which is a very pleasing 
thing to human nature; and by questions pertinently and 
artificially proposed, it does as effectually draw him on 
to discover his own mistakes, which he is much more 
easily persuaded to relinquish when he seems to have 
discovered them himself. 

4. It is managed in a great measure in the form of 
the most easy reasoning, always arising from something 
asserted or known in the foregoing answer, and so pro¬ 
ceeding to inquire something unknown in the following 
question, which again makes way for the next answer. 
Now such an exercise is very alluring and entertaining 
to the understanding, while its own reasoning powers 
are all along employed, and that without labour or diffi¬ 
culty, because, the querist finds out and proposes all the 
intermediate ideas or middle terms. 

IV. There is a method very nearly akin to this, which 
has much obtained of late, viz. writing controversies by 
questions only, or confirming or refuting any position, 
or persuading to or dehorting from any practice, by the 
mere proposal of queries. The answer to them is sup¬ 
posed to be so plain and so necessary, that they are not 
expressed, because the query itself carries a convincing 


103 


OF FORENSIC DISPUTES. 


argument in it, and seems to determine what the answer 
must be. 

V. If Christian catechisms could be framed in the 
manner of a Socratical dispute by question and answer, 
it would wonderfully enlighten the minds of children, 
and it would improve their intellectual and reasoning 
powers, at the same time that it leads them into the know¬ 
ledge of religion: and it is upon one account well suited 
to the capacity of children; for the questions may be 
pretty numerous, and the querist must not proceed too 
swiftly towards the determination of his point proposed, 
that ne may with more ease, with brighter evidence, 
and with surer success, draw the learner on to assent to 
those principles, step by step, from whence the final 
conclusion will naturally arise. The only inconveni¬ 
ence would be this, that if children were to reason out 
all their way entirely into the knowledge of every part 
of their religion, it would draw common catechisms into 
too large a volume for their leisure, attention, or me¬ 
mory. 

Yet those who explain their catechisms to them may, 
by due application and forethought, instruct them in 
this manner. 


CHAPTER XII. 

OF FORENSIC DISPUTES. 

I. The forum was a public place in Rome where 
lawyers and orators made their speeches before the 
proper judge in matters of property or in criminal cases, 
to accuse or excuse, to complain or defend: thence all 
sorts of disputations in public assemblies or courts of jus¬ 
tice, where several persons make their distinct speeches 
for or against any person or thing whatsoever, but more 
especially in civil matters, may come under the name 
of Forensic disputes. 

II. This is practised not only in the courts of judica¬ 
ture, where a single person sits to judge of the truth or 



OF FORENSIC DISPUTES. 


107 


goodness of any cause, and to determine according to 
the weight of reasons on either side; but it is used also 
in political senates or parliaments, ecclesiastical synods, 
and assemblies of various kinds. 

In these assemblies, generally one person is chosen 
chairman or mediator, not to give a determination to 
the controversy, but chiefly to keep the several speakers 
to the rules of order and decency in their conduct: but 
the final determination of the questions arises from the 
majority of opinions or votes in the assembly, accord* 
ing as they are or ought to be swayed by the superior 
weight of reason appearing in the several speeches that 
are made. 

III. The method of proceeding is usually in some 
such form as this. The first person who speaks, when 
the court is set, opens the case either more briefly or at 
large, and proposes the case to the judge or the chair¬ 
man, or moderator of the assembly, and gives his own 
reasons for his opinion in the case proposed. 

IV. This person is succeeded by one, or perhaps two, 
or several more, who paraphrase on the same subject, 
and argue on the same side of the question: they confirm 
what the first has spoken, and urge new reasons to en¬ 
force the same: then those who are of a different opinion 
stand up and make their several speeches in succession, 
opposing the cause which others have maintained, giving 
their reasons against it, and endeavouring to refute the 
arguments whereby the first speakers have supported it. 

V. After this, one and another raises up to make their 
replies, to vindicate or to condemn, to establish or to 
confute what has been offered before on each side of the 
question; till at last, according to the rules, orders, or 
customs of the court or assembly, the controversy is de¬ 
cided, either by a single judge, or the suffrages of the 
assembly. 

VI. Where the question or matter in debate consists 
of several parts, after it is once opened by the first or 
second speaker, sometimes those who follow take each 
of them a particular part of the debate, according to 
their inclination or their prior agreement, and apply 
themselves to argue upon that single point only, that so 


108 


OF FORENSIC DISPUTES. 


the whole complexion of the debate may not be thrown 
into confusion by the variety of subjects, if every speaker 
should handle all the subjects of debate. 

VII. Before the final sentence of determination is 
given, it is usual to have the reasons and arguments, 
which have been offered on both sides, summed up and 
represented in a more compendious manner; and this 
is done either by the appointed judge of the court, or 
the chairman, or some noted person in the assembly, 
that so judgment may proceed upon the fullest survey 
of the whole subject, that as far as possible in human 
affairs nothing may be done contrary to truth or justice. 

VIII. As this is a practice in which multitudes of 
gentlemen, besides those of the learned professions, may 
be engaged, at least, in their maturer years of life, so it 
would be a very proper and useful thing to introduce 
this custom into our academies, viz. to propose cases, 
and let the students debate them in a forensic manner 
in the presence of their tutors. There was something 
of this kind practised by the Roman youth in their 
schools, in order to train them up for orators, both in 
the forum and in the senate. Perhaps Juvenal gives 
some hints of it when he says, 

.et nos, 

Consilium dedimus Syllae, privatus utaltum 

Dormiret. Sat. 1. 

Where with men boys I strove to get renown, 

Advising Sylla to a private gown, 

That he might sleep the sounder. 

Sometimes these were assigned to the boys as single 
subjects of a theme or declamation: so the same poet 
speaks sarcastically to Hannibal: 

.I demens, et saevas curre per Alpes, 

Ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias. Sat. 10. 

Go climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool. 

To please the boys, and be a theme at school. 

See more of this matter in Rennet’s Antiquities of 
Rome, in the second Essay on the Roman education. 





109 


OF ACADEMIC, OR &C. 

« 

CHAPTER XIII. 


OF ACADEMIC, OR SCHOLASTIC DISPUTATION. 

The common methods in which disputes are managed 
in schools of learning are these, viz. 

I. The tutor appoints a question in some of the 
sciences, to be debated amongst his students: one of 
them undertakes to affirm or to deny the question, and 
to defend his assertion or negation, and to answer all 
objections against it; he is called the respondent: and 
the rest of the students in the same class, or who pursue 
the same science, are the opponents, who are appointed 
to dispute or raise objections against the proposition thus 
affirmed or denied. 

II. Each of the students successively in their tarn be¬ 
come the respondent or the defender of that proposition, 
while the rest oppose it also successively in their turns. 

III. It is the business of the respondent to write a 
thesis in Latin, or short discourses on the question pro¬ 
posed; and he either affirms or denies the question, ac¬ 
cording to the opinion of the tutor, which is supposed 
to be the truth, and he reads it at the beginning of the 
dispute. 

IV. In his discourse (which is written with as great 
accuracy as the youth is capable of) he explains the 
terms of the question, frees them from all ambiguity, 
fixes their sense, declares the true intent and meaning 
of the question itself, separates it from other questions 
with which it may have been complicated, and distin¬ 
guishes it from other questions which may happen to 
be akin to it, and then pronounces in the negative or af¬ 
firmative concerning it. 

V. When this is done, then, in the second part of his 
discourse, he gives his own strongest arguments to con¬ 
firm the proposition he has laid down, i. e. to vindicate 
his own side of the question; but he does not usually 
proceed to represent the objections against it, and to 
solve or answer them; for it is the business of the other 
etudents to raiso objections in disputing. 

10 


no 


OP ACADEMIC, OB 


VI. Note, in some schools the ftespondent is admitted 
to talk largely upon the question, with many flourishes 
and illustrations, to introduce great authorities from 
ancient and modern writings for the support of it, and 
to scatter Latin reproaches in abundance on all those 
who are of a different sentiment. But this is not al¬ 
ways permitted; nor should it indeed ever be indulged, 
lest it teach youth to reproach instead of to reason. 

VII. When the respondent has read over his thesis in 
the school, the junior student makes an objection, and 
draws it up into the regular form of a syllogism: the 
respondent repeats the objection, and either denies the 
major or minor proposition directly, or he distinguishes 
upon some word or phrase in the major or minor, and 
shows in what sense the proposition may be true, but 
that sense does not affect the question: and then declares, 
that in the sense which affects the present question, the 
proposition is not true, and consequently he denies it. 

VIII. Then the opponent proceeds by another syllo¬ 
gism to vindicate the proposition that is denied: again 
the respondent answers by denying or distinguishing. 

Thus the disputation goes on in a series or succession 
of syllogisms and answers, till the objector is silenced, 
and has no more to say. 

IX. When he can go no further, the next student be¬ 
gins to propose his objection, and then the third and the 
fourth, even to the senior, who is the last opponent. 

X. Daring this time the tutor sits in the chair as presi¬ 
dent or moderator, to see that the rules of disputation 
and decency be observed on both sides; and to admonish 
each disputant of any irregularity in their conduct. 
His work is also to illustrate and explain the answer or 
distinction of the respondent where it is obscure, to 
strengthen it where it is weak, and to correct it where it 
is false: and when the respondent is pinched with a 
strong objection, and is at loss for an answer, the mode¬ 
rator assists him, and suggests some answer to the ob¬ 
jection of the opponent, in defence of the question, ac¬ 
cording to his opinion or sentiment. 

XI. In public disputes, where the opponents and re¬ 
spondents choose their own side of the question, the 


OF SCHOLASTIC DISPUTATION. Ill 

moderator’s work is not to favour either disputant; but 
he only sits as president, to see that the laws of dispu¬ 
tation be observed, and a decorum maintained. 

XII. Now the laws of disputation relate either to the 
opponent or to the respondent, or to both. 

The laws obliging the opponent are these. 

1. That he must directly contradict the proposition of 
the respondent, and not merely attack any of the argu¬ 
ments whereby the respondent has supported that prop¬ 
osition; for it is one thing to confute a single argument 
of the respondent, and another to confute the thesis it¬ 
self. 

2. (Which is akin to the former) he must contradict 
or oppose the very sense and intention of the proposi¬ 
tion as the respondent has stated it, and not merely oppose 
the words of the thesis in any other sense; for this would be 
the way to plunge the dispute into ambiguity and dark¬ 
ness, to talk beside the question, to wrangle about words, 
and to attack a proposition different from what the 
respondent has espoused, which is called ignoratio elenchi. 

3. He must propose his argumenta in a plain, short, 
and syllogistic form, according to the rules of logic, 
without flying to fallacies or sophisms, and, as far as 
may be, he should use categorical syllogisms. 

4. Though the respondent may be attacked either up¬ 
on a point of his own concession, which is called argu- 
mentum ex concessis, or by reducing him to an absurdity, 
which is called reductio ad absurdam , yet it is the neat¬ 
est, the most useful, and the best sort of disputation, 
where the opponent draws his objections from the nature 
of the question itself. 

5. Where the respondent denies any proposition, the 
opponent, if he proceed, must directly vindicate and 
confirm that proposition, i. e. he must make that propo¬ 
sition the conclusion of his next syllogism. 

6. Where the respondent limits or distinguishes any 
proposition, the opponent must directly prove his own 
proposition in that sense, and according to the member 
of the distinction in which the respondent denied it. 

XIII. the laws that oblige the respondent are these. 


i 


112 


OF ACADEMIC, OR 


1. To repeat the argument of the opponent in the 
very same words in which it was proposed, before he at¬ 
tempts to answer it. 

2. If the syllogism be false in the logical form of it, 
he must discover the fault according to the rules of 
logic. 

3. If the argument does not directly and effectually 
oppose his thesis, he must show this mistake, and make 
it appear that his thesis is safe, even though the argu¬ 
ment of the opponent be admitted; or, at least, that 
the argument does only aim at it collaterally, or at a 
distance, and not directly overthrow it, or conclude 
against it. 

4. Where the matter of the opponent’s objection is 
faulty in any part of it, the respondent must grant what 
is true in it, he must deny what is false, he must distin¬ 
guish or limit the proposition which is ambiguous or 
doubtful, and then, granting the sense in which it is 
true, he must deny the sense in which it is false. 

5. If an hypothetic proposition be false, the respon¬ 
dent must deny the consequence; if a disjunctive, he 
must deny the disjunction; if a categoric or relative, he 
must simply deny it. 

6. It is sometimes allowed for the respondent to use 
an indirect answer after he has answered directly; and 
he may also show how the opponent’s argument may be 
retorted against himself. 

XIV. The laws that oblige both disputants are these: 

1. Sometimes it is necessary there should be a men¬ 
tion of certain general principles in which they both 
agree, relating to the question, that so they may not dis¬ 
pute on those things which either are or ought to have 
been first granted on both sides. 

2. When the state of the controversy is well known, 
and plainly determined and agreed, it must not be al¬ 
tered by either disputant in the course of the disputa¬ 
tion; and the respondent especially should keep a watch¬ 
ful eye on the opponent in this matter. 

3. Let neither party invade the province of the oth¬ 
er; especially let the respondent take heed that he does 


SCHOLASTIC DISPUTATION. 


113 


not turn opponent, except in retorting the argument 
upon his adversary after a direct response; and even this 
is allowed only as an illustration or confirmation of his 
own response. 

4. Let each wait with patience till the other has done 
speaking. It is a piece of rudeness to interrupt another 
in his speech. 

Yet, though the disputants have not this liberty, the 
moderator may do it, when either of the disputants 
break the rules, and he may interpose so far as to keep 
them in order. 

XV. It must be confessed there are some advantages 
to be attained by academical disputation. It gives vi¬ 
gour and briskness to the mind thus exercised, and re¬ 
lieves the languor of private study and meditation. It 
sharpens the wit, and all the inventive powers. It makes 
the thoughts active, and sends them on all sides to find 
arguments and answers both for opposition and defence. 
It gives opportunity of viewing the subject of discourse 
on all sides, and of learning what inconveniences, diffi¬ 
culties, and objections, attend particular opinions. It 
furnishes the soul with various occasions of starting such 
thoughts as otherwise would never have come into the 
mind. It makes a student more expert in attacking and 
refuting an error, as well as in vindicating a truth. It 
instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding 
off the force of objections, and of discovering and re¬ 
pelling the subtle tricks of sophisters. It procures also 
a freedom and readiness of speech, and raises the mod¬ 
est and diffident genius to a due degree of courage. 

XVI. But there are some very grievous inconvenien¬ 
ces that may sometimes overbalance all these advanta¬ 
ges. For many young students, by a constant habit of 
disputing, grow impudent and audacious, proud and dis¬ 
dainful, talkative and impertinent, and render themselves 
intolerable by an obstinate humour of maintaining what¬ 
ever they have asserted, as well as by a spirit of contra¬ 
diction, opposing almost every thing that they hear. 
The disputation itself often awakens the passions of am¬ 
bition, emulation, and anger; it carries away the mind 


10* 


114 


OF ACADEMIC, OR 


from that calm and sedate temper which is so necessary 
to contemplate truth. 

XVII. It is evident also, that by frequent exercises of 
this sort, wherein opinions true and false are argued, 
supported, and refuted on both sides, the mind of man 
is led by insensible degrees to an uncertainty and fluctu¬ 
ating temper, and falls into danger of a sceptical hu¬ 
mour, which never comes to an establishment in any 
doctrines. Many persons, by this means, become much 
more ready to observe whatsoever is offered in searching 
out truth; they hardly wait till they have read or heard 
the sentiment of any person, before their heads are bus¬ 
ily employed to seek out arguments against it. They 
grow naturally sharp in finding out difficulties; and by 
indulging this humour they converse with the dark and 
doubtful parts of a subject so long, till they almost ren¬ 
der themselves incapable of receiving the full evidence 
of a proposition, and acknowledging the light of truth. 
It has some tendency to make a youth a carping critic, 
rather than a judicious man. 

XVIII. I would add yet further, that in these dispu¬ 
tations the respondent is generally appointed to main¬ 
tain the supposed truth, that is, the tutor’s opinion. But 
all the opponents are busy and warmly engaged in find¬ 
ing arguments against the truth. Now if a sprightly 
young genius happens to manage his arguments so well 
as to puzzle and gravel the respondent, and perhaps to 
perplex the moderator a little too, he is soon tempted to 
suppose his argument unanswerable, and the truth en¬ 
tirely to lie on his side. The pleasure which he takes 
in having found a sophism which has great appearance 
of reason, and which he himself has managed with such 
success, becomes perhaps a strong prejudice to engage his 
inward sentiments in favour of his argument, and in op¬ 
position to the supposed truth. 

XIX. Yet perhaps it may be possible to reduce scho¬ 
lastic disputations under such a guard as, may, in some 
measure, prevent most of these abuses of them, and the 
unhappy events that too often attend them; for it is pity 
that an exercise which has some valuable benefits atten¬ 
ding it, should be utterly thrown away, if it be possible 


SCHOLASTIC DISPUTATION. 115 

to secure young minds against the abuse of it; for which 
purpose some of these directions may seem proper. 

XX. General directions for scholastic disputes: 

1. Never dispute upon mere trifles, things that are 
utterly useless to be known, under a vain pretence of 
sharpening the wit; for the same advantage may be de¬ 
rived from solid and useful subjects, and thus two hap¬ 
py ends may be attained at once. Or if such disputa¬ 
tions are always thought dangerous in important mat¬ 
ters, let them be utterly abandoned. 

2. Do not make infinite and unsearchable things the 
matter of dispute, nor such propositions as are made up 
of mere words without ideas, lest it lead young persons 
into a most unhappy habit of talking without a mean¬ 
ing, and boldly to determine upon things that are hardly 
within the reacli of human capacity. 

3. Let not obvious and known truths, or some of the 
most plain and certain propositions, be bandied about in 
a disputation, for a mere trial of skill; for he that oppo¬ 
ses them in this manner will be in danger of contracting 
a habit of opposing all evidence, will acquire aspiritof 
contradiction, and pride himself in a power of resisting 
the brightest light, and fighting against the strongest 
proofs; this will insensibly injure the mind, and tends 
greatly to a universal scepticism. 

Upon the whole, therefore, the most proper subjects 
of dispute seem to be, those very questions which are 
not of the very highest importance and certainty, nor 
of the meanest and trifling kind; but rather the interme¬ 
diate questions between these two, and there is a large 
sufficiency of them in the sciences. But this I put as a 
mere proposal, to be determined by the more learned 
and prudent. 

4. It would be well if every dispute could be so or¬ 
dered as to be a means of searching out truth, and not 
to gain a triumph. Then each disputant might come 
to the work without bias and prejudice: with a desire of 
truth, and not witn ambition of glory and victory. 

Nor should the aim and design of the disputant be to 
avoid artfully arid escape the difficulties which the op- 


lie 


OF ACADEMIC, OR 


portent offers, but to discuss them thoroughly, and solve 
them fairly, if they are capable of being solved. 

Again, let the opponent be solicitous not to darken 
and confound the responses that are given him by fresh 
subtleties; but let him bethink himself whether they are 
not a just answer to the objection, and be honestly ready 
to perceive and accept them, and yield to them. 

5. For this end let both the respondent and opponent 
use the clearest and most distinct and expressive lan¬ 
guage in which they can clothe their thoughts. Let 
them seek and practise brevity and perspicuity on both 
sides, without long declamations, tedious circumlocu¬ 
tions, and rhetorical flourishes. 

If there happen to be any doubt or obscurity on eith¬ 
er side, let neither the one nor the other ever refuse to 
give a fair explication of the words they use. 

6. They should not indulge ridicule, either of persons 
or things, in their disputations. They should abstain 
from all banter and jest, laughter and merriment. 
These are things that break in upon that philosophical 
gravity, sedateness, and serenity of temper which ought 
to be observed in every search after truth. However an 
argument on some subjects may be sometimes clothed 
with a little pleasantry, yet a jest or witticism should 
never be used instead of an argument, nor should it ev¬ 
er be suffered to pass for a real and solid proof. 

But especially if the subject be sacred or divine, and 
have nothing in it comical or ridiculous, all ludicrous 
turns, and jocose or comical airs, should be entirely ex¬ 
cluded, lest young minds become tinctured with a silly 
and profane sort of ridicule, and learn to jest and trifle 
with the awful solemnities of religion. 

7. Nor should sarcasm and reproach, or insolent lan¬ 
guage, ever be used among fair disputants. Turn not 
off from things to speak of persons. Leave all noisy 
contests, all immodest clamours, brawling language, and 
especially all personal scandal and scurrility, to the 
meanest part of the vulgar world. Let your manner be 
all candour and gentleness, patient and ready to hear, 
humbly zealous to inform and be informed: you should 
be free and pleasant in every answer and behaviour, 


SCHOLASTIC DISPUTATION. 


117 


rather like well bred gentlemen in polite conversation, 
than like noisy and contentious wranglers. 

8. If the opponent sees victory to incline to his side, 
let him be content to show the force of his argument to 
the intelligent part of the company, without too impor¬ 
tunate and petulant demands of an answer, and without 
insulting over his antagonist, or putting the modesty of 
the respondent to the blush. Nor let the respondent 
triumph over the opponent when he is silent and replies 
no more. On which side soever victory declares her¬ 
self, let neither of them manage with such unpleasing 
and insolent airs, as to awaken those evil passions of 
pride, anger, shame, or resentment on either side which 
alienate the mind from truth, render it obstinate in the 
defence of an error, and never suffer it to part with any 
of its old opinions. 

In short, when truth evidently appears on either side, 
let them learn to yield to conviction. When either par¬ 
ty is at a nonplus, let them confess the difficulty, and 
desire present assistance, or further time and retirement 
to consider of the matter, and not rack their present in¬ 
vention to find out little shifts to avoid the force and evi¬ 
dence of truth. 

9. Might it not be a safer practice in order to attain 
the best ends of disputation, and to avoid some of the 
ill effects of it, if the opponents were sometimes en¬ 
gaged on the side of truth, and produced their arguments 
in opposition to error? And what if the respondent was 
appointed to support the error, and defend it as well as 
he could, till he was forced to yield at least to those 
arguments of the opponent which appear to be really 
just, and strong, and unanswerable? ^ 

In this practice, the thesis of the respondent should 
only be a fair stating of the question with some of the 
chief objections against the truth proposed and solved. 

Perhaps this practice might not so easily be perverted 
and abused to raise a cavilling, disputive, and sceptical 
temper in the minds of youth. 

I confess, in this method which I now propose, there 
would be one amongst the students, viz. the respondent, 
always engaged in the supposed error; but all the rest 


118 


OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


would be exercising their talents in arguing for the sup¬ 
posed truth: whereas, in the common methods of dis¬ 
putation in the schools, especially where the students 
are numerous, each single student is perpetually em¬ 
ployed to oppose the truth, and vindicate error, except 
once in a long time, when it comes to his turn to be re¬ 
spondent. 

10. typon the whole it seems necessary that these 
methods of disputation should be learned in the schools, 
in order to teach students better to defend truth, and to 
refute error, both in writing and conversation, where 
the scholastic forms are utterly neglected. 

But after all, the advantage which youth may gain 
by disputations depends much on the tutor or moderator, 
he should manage with such prudence, both in the dis¬ 
putation and at the end of it, as to make all the dispu¬ 
tants know the very point of controversy wherein it 
consists; he should manifest the fallacy of sophistical ob¬ 
jections, and confirm the solid arguments and answers. 
This might teach students how to make the art of dis¬ 
putation useful for the searching out the truth and the 
defence of it, that it may not be learned and practised 
only as an art of wrangling, which reigned in the schools 
several hundred years, and divested the growing reason 
of youth of its best hopes and improvements. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 

I. It has been proved and established in some of the 
foregoing chapters, that neither our own observations, 
nor our reading the labours of the learned, nor the at¬ 
tendance on the best lectures of instruction, nor enjoying 
the brightest conversation, can ever make a man truly 
knowing and wise, without the labours of his own rea¬ 
son in surveying, examining, and judging concerning 
all subjects upon the best evidence he can acquire. A 
good genius, or sagacity of thought, a happy judgment, 



OP STUDI OR MEDITATION. 


119 


a capacious memory, and large opportunities of observa¬ 
tion and converse, will do much of themselves towards 
the cultivation of the mind, where they are well im¬ 
proved ; but wfiere, to the advantage of learned lectures, 
living instructions, and well chosen books, diligence and 
study are superadded, this man has all human aids con¬ 
curring to raise him to a superior degree of wisdom and 
knowledge. 

Under the preceding heads of discourse it has been 
already declared how our own meditation and reflection 
should examine, cultivate, and improve all other methods 
and advantages of enriching the understanding. What 
remains in this chapter is to give some further occasional 
hints how to employ our own thoughts, what sort of sub¬ 
jects we should meditate on, and in what manner we 
should regulate our studies, and how we may improve our 
judgment, so as in the most effectual and compendious 
way to attain such knowledge as may be most useful 
for every man in his circumstances of life, and particu¬ 
larly for those of the learned professions. 

II. <The first direction for youth is this—learn betimes 
to distinguish between words and things. Get clear 
and plain ideas of the things you are set to study. Do 
not content yourselves with mere words and names, lest 
your laboured improvements only amass a heap of un¬ 
intelligible phrases, and you feed upon husks instead of 
kernels. This rule is of unknown use in every science. 

Bnt the greatest and most common danger is in the 
sacred science of theology, tvhere settled terms and 
phrases have been pronounced divine and orthodox, 
which yet have no meaning in them. The scholas¬ 
tic divinity would furnish us with numerous instances 
of this folly; and yet for many ages all truth and all 
heresy have been determined by such senseless tests, and 
by words without ideas: such Shibboleths as these have 
decided the secular fates of men: and bishoprics or burn¬ 
ing mitres or faggots have been the rewards of different 
persons, according as they pronounced these consecrated 
syllables, or not pronounced them. To defend them 
was all piety, and pomp, and triumph; to despise them, 
or to doubt or to deny them, was torture and death. A 


120 


OF STUDY OR MEDIT XTION. 


thousand thank-offerings are due to that Providence 
which has delivered our age and our nation from these 
absurd iniquities! O that every specimen and shadow 
of this madness were banished from bur schools and 
churches in every shape! 

III. Let not young students apply themselves to search 
out deep, dark, and abstruse matters, far above their 
reach, or spend their labour in any peculiar subjects, for 
which they have not the advantages of necessary ante¬ 
cedent learning, or books, or observations. Let them 
not be too hasty to know things above their present 
powers, nor plunge their inquiries at once into the depths 
of knowledge, nor begin to study any science in the 
middle of it; this will confound rather than enlighten the 
understanding; such practices may happen to discourage 
and jade the mind by an attempt above its power; it may 
balk the understanding, and create an aversion to future 
dilligence, and perhaps by despair may forbid the pur¬ 
suit of that subject for ever afterwards: as a limb over¬ 
strained by lifting a weight above its power may never 
recover its former agility and vigour; or if it does, the 
man may be frighted from ever exerting its Hrength 
again. 

IV. Nor yet let any student, on the other hand, fright 
himself at every turn with insurmountable difficulties, 
nor imagine that the truth is wrapt up in impenetrable 
darkness. These are formidable spectres which the un¬ 
derstanding raises sometimes to flatter its own laziness. 
Those things which in a remote and confused view seem 
very obscure and perplexed may be approached by gentle 
and regular steps, and may then unfold and explain 
themselves at large to the eye. The hardest problems 
in geometry, and the most intricate schemes or diagrams, 
may be explicated and understood step by step; every 
great mathematician bears a constant witness to this 
observation. 

V. In learning any new thing, there should be as 
little as possible first proposed to the mind at once, and 
that being understood and fully mastered, proceed then 
to the next adjoining part yet unknown. This is a slow, 
fcut safe and sure way to arrive at knowledge. If the 


OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


121 


mind apply itself at first to easier subjects, and things 
near akin to what is already known, and then advance 
to the more remote and knotty parts of knowledge by 
slow degrees, it would be able in this manner to cope 
with great difficulties, and prevail over them with amaz¬ 
ing and happy success. 

Mathon happened to dip into the last two chapters of 
a new book of geometry and mensuration as soon as he 
saw it, and was frighted with the complicated diagrams 
which he found there, about the frustums of cones and 
pyramids, &c. and some deep demonstrations among 
conic sections; he shut the book again in desp'air, and 
imagined none but a Sir Isaac Newton was ever fit to 
read it. But his tutor happily persuaded him to begin 
the first pages about lines and angles; and he found such 
surprising pleasure in three weeks time in the victories 
he daily obtained, that at last he became one of the 
chief geometers of his age. 

VI. Engage not the mind in the intense pursuit of 
too many things at once; especially such as have no re¬ 
lation to one another. This will be ready to distract 
the understanding, and hinder it from attaining perfec¬ 
tion in any one subject of study. Such a practice gives 
a slight smattering of several sciences, without any solid 
and substantial knowledge of them, and without any 
real and valuable improvement; and though two or three 
sorts of study may be usefully carried on at once, to 
entertain the mind with variety, that it may not be over¬ 
tired with one sort of thoughts, yet a multitude of sub¬ 
jects will too much distract the attention, and weaken 
the application of the mind to any one of them. 

Where two or three sciences are pursued at the same 
time, if one of them be dry, abstracted, and unpleasant, 
as logic, metaphysics, law, languages, let another be 
more entertaining and agreeable, to secure the mind from 
weariness and aversion to study. Delight should be in¬ 
termingled with labour as far as possible, to allure us to 
bear the fatigue of dry studies the better. Poetry, prac¬ 
tical mathematics, history, &c. are generally esteemed 
entertaining studies, and may be happily used for this 
purpose. Thus while we relf we a dull and heavy hour 
11 


122 


OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


by some alluring employments of the mind, our very 
diversions enrich our understandings, and our pleasure 
is turned into profit. 

XII. In the pursuit of every valuable subject .^knowl¬ 
edge, keep the end always in your eye, and be not di¬ 
verted from it by every petty trifle you meet with in the 
way. Some persons have such a wandering genius 
that they are ready to pursue every incidental theme or 
occasional idea, till they have lost sight of the original 
subject. These are the men who, when they are en¬ 
gaged in conversation, prolong their story by dwelling 
on every incident, and swell their narrative with long 
parentheses, till they have lost their first designs; like a 
man who is serit in quest of some great treasure, but he 
steps aside to gather every flower he finds, or stands still 
to dig up every shining pebble he meets with in his way, 
till tiie treasure is forgotten and never found. 

VIII. Exert your care, skill, and diligence, about 
every subject and every question, in a just proportion 
to the importance of it, togethe** with the danger and 
bad consequences of ignorance or error therein. Many 
excellent advantages flow from this one direction: 

1. This rule will teach you to be very careful in gam¬ 
ing some general and fundamental truth both in philoso¬ 
phy, and religion, and in human life; because they are 
of the highest moment, and conduct our thoughts with 
ease into a thousand inferior and particular propositions. 
Such is that great principle in natural philosophy—the 
doctrine of gravitation, or mutual tendency of all bodies 
towards each otlTer, which Sir Isaac Newton has so well 
established, and from which he has drawn the solution 
of a multitude of appearances in the heavenly bodies as 
well as on earth. 

Such is that golden principle of morality which our 
blessed Lord has given us—Do that to others which you 
think just and reasonable that others should do to you, 
which is almost sufficient in itself to solve all cases of 
conscience which relate to our neighbour. 

Such are those principles in religion—that a rational 
creature is accountable to his Maker for all his actions 
—that the soul of man is immortal—that there is a fu- 


OP STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


123 


ture state of happiness and of misery depending on our 
behaviour in the present life, on which all our religious 
practices are built or supported. 

We should be very curious in examining all proposi¬ 
tions that pretend to this honour of being general prin¬ 
ciples: and we should not without just evidence admit 
into this rank mere matters of common fame, or com¬ 
monly received opinions; no, nor the general determina¬ 
tion of the learned, or the established articles of any 
church or nation, &c. for there are many learned pre¬ 
sumptions, many synodical and national mistakes, many 
established falsehoods, as well as many vulgar errors, 
wherein multitudes of men have followed one another 
for whole ages almost blindfold. It is of great impor¬ 
tance for every man to be careful that these general 
principles are just and true; for one error may lead us 
into thousands, which will naturally follow, if once a 
leading falsehood be admitted. 

2. Th’s rule will direct us to; be more careful about 
practical points than mere speculations, since they are 
commonly of much greater use and consequence: there¬ 
fore the speculations of algebra, the doctrine of infini¬ 
ties, and the quadrature of curves in mathematical learn¬ 
ing, together with all the train of theorems in natural 
philosophy, should by no means entrench upon our stu¬ 
dies of morality and virtue. Even in the science of 
divinity itself, the sublimest speculations of it are not 
of that worth and value, as the rules of duty towards 
God and towards men. 

3. In matters of practice we should be most careful 
to fix our end right, and wisely to determine the scope 
at which we aim, because that is to direct us in the 
choice and use of all the means to attain it. If our end 
be wrong, all our labour in the means will be vain, or 
perhaps so much the more pernicious as they are bet¬ 
ter suited to attain that mistaken end. If mere sensible 
pleasure, or human grandeur, or wealth, be our chief 
end, we shall choose means contrary to piety and virtue, 
and proceed apace towards real misery. 

4. This rule will engage our best powers and deepest 
attention in the affairs of religion, and things that re- 


124 


OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


late to a future world: for those propositions which ex¬ 
tend only to the interest of the present life, are but of 
small importance when compared with those that have 
influence upon our everlasting concernments. 

5. And even in the affairs of religion, if we walk by 
the conduct of this rule, we shall be much more labori¬ 
ous in our inquiries into the necessary and fundamental 
articles of faith and practice, than the lesser appendices 
of Christianity. The great doctrines of repentance to¬ 
wards God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, with love to 
men, and universal holiness, will employ our best and 
brightest hours and meditations, while the mint, anise, 
and cummin, the gestures, and vestures, and fringes of 
religion, will be regarded no farther than they have a 
plain and evident connexion with faith and love, with 
holiness and peace. 

6. This rule will make us solicitous not only to avoid 
such errors, whose influence would spread wide into the 
whole scheme of our own knowledge and practice, but 
such mistakes also whose influence would be yet more 
extensive and injurious to others as well as to ourselves: 
perhaps to many persons or many families, to a whole 
church, a town, a country, or a kingdom. Upon this 
account, persons who are called to instruct others, who 
are raised to any eminence either in church or state, 
ought to be careful in settling their principles in matters 
relating to the civil, the moral, or the religious life, lest 
a mistake of theirs should diffuse wide mischief, should 
draw along with it most pernicious consequences, and 
perhaps extqnd to following generations. 

These are some of the advantages which arise from 
the eighth rule, viz. Pursue every inquiry and study in 
proportion to its real value and importance. 

IX. Have a care lest some beloved notion, or some 
darling science, so far prevail over your rnind as to give 
a sovereign tincture to all your other studies, and dis¬ 
colour all your ideas, like a person in the jaundice, who 
spreads a yellow scene with his eyes over all the objects 
which he meets. I have known a man of peculiar skill 
in music, and much devoted to that science, who found 
out a great resemblance of the Athanasian doctrine of 


OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


125 


the Trinity in every single note, and he thought it car¬ 
ried something of argument in it to prove that doctrine. 
I have read of another who accommodated the seven 
days of the first week of creation to seven notes of mu¬ 
sic, and thus the whole creation became harmonious. 

Under this influence, derived from mathematical stu¬ 
dies, some have been tempted to cast all their logical, 
their metaphysical, and their theological and moral 
learning into the method of mathematicians, and bring 
every thing relating to those abstracted, or those prac¬ 
tical sciences, under theorems, problems, postulates, 
scholiums, corollaries, &c. whereas, the matter ought 
always to direct the method; for all subjects or matters 
of thought cannot be moulded or subdued to one form. 
Neither the rules for the conduct of the understanding, 
nor the doctrines nor duties of religion and virtue, can 
be exhibited naturally in figures and diagrams. Things 
are to be considered as they are in themselves; their na¬ 
tures are inflexible, and their natural relations unaltera¬ 
ble; and therefore, in order to conceive them aright, wo 
must bring our understandings to things, and not pre¬ 
tend to bend and strain things to comport with our fan¬ 
cies and forms. 

X. Suffer not any beloved study to prejudice your 
mind so far in favour of it as to despise all other learn¬ 
ing. This is a fault of some little souls, who have got 
a smattering of astronomy, chymistry, metaphysics, his¬ 
tory, &c. and for want of a due acquaintance with other 
sciences, make a scoff at them all in comparison of their 
favourite science. Their understandings are hereby 
cooped up in narrow bounds, so that they never look 
abroad into other provinces of the intellectual world, 
which are more beautiful, perhaps, and more fruitful 
than their own: if they would search a little into other 
sciences, they might not only find treasures of new 
knowledge, but might be furnished also with rich hints 
Df thought, and glorious assistances to cultivate that ve¬ 
ry province to which they have confined themselves. 

Here I would always give some grains of allowance 
to the sacred science of theology, which is incompara¬ 
bly superior to all the rest, as it teaches us the knowl- 
11 * 


126 


OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


edge of God, and the way to his eternal favour. This 
is that noble study which is every man’s duty, and eve¬ 
ry one who can be called a rational creature is capable 
of it. 

This is that science which would truly enlarge the 
minds of men, were it studied with that freedom, that 
unbiased love of truth, and that sacred charity which it 
teaches; and if it were not made, contrary to its own 
nature, the occasion of strife, faction, malignity, a nar¬ 
row spirit, and unreasonable impositions on the mind 
and practice. Let this, therefore, stand always chief. 

XI. Let every particular study have due and proper 
time assigned it, and let not a favourite science prevail 
with you to lay out such hours upon it, as ought to be 
employed upon the more necessary and more important 
affairs or studies of your profession. When you have, 
according to the best of your discretion, and according 
to the circumstances of your life, fixed proper hours for 
particular studies, endeavour to keep to those rules; not, 
indeed, with a superstitious preciseness, but with some 
good degrees of a regular constancy. Order and method 
in a course of study saves much time, and makes large 
improvements. Such a fixation of certain hours will 
have a happy influence to secure you from trifling and 
wasting away your minutes in impertinence. 

XII. Do not apply yourself to any one study at one 
time longer than the mind is capable of giving a close 
attention to it without weariness or wandering. Do not 
over fatigue the spirits at any time, lest the mind be 
seized with a lassitude, and thereby be tempted to nause¬ 
ate and grow tired of a particular subject before you 
have finished it. 

XIII. In the beginning of your application to any 
new subject be not too uneasy under present difficulties 
that occur, nor too importunate and impatient for an¬ 
swers and solutions to any questions that arise. Per¬ 
haps a little more study, a little further acquaintance 
with the subject, a little time and experience, will solve 
those difficulties, untie the knot, and make your doubts 
vanish: especially if you are under the instruction of a 
tutor, he can inform you that your inquiries are perhaps 


OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


127 


too early, and that you have not yet learned those prin¬ 
ciples upon which the solution of such a difficulty 
depends. 

XIV. Do not expect to arrive at certainty in every 
subject which you pursue. There are a hundred things 
wherein we mortals in this dark and imperfect state 
must be content with probability, where our best light 
and reasonings will reach no farther. We must balance 
arguments as justly as we can, and where we cannot 
find weight enough on either side to determine the scale 
with sovereign force and assurance, we must content 
ourselves, perhaps, with a small preponderation. This 
will give us a probable opinion, and those probabilities 
are sufficient for the daily determination of a thousand 
actions in human life, and many times even in matters 
of religion. 

It is admirably well expressed by a late writer— 
“ When there is a great strength of argument set before 
us, if we will refuse to do what appears most fit for us, 
till every little objection is removed, we shall never take 
one wise resolution as long as we live.” 

Suppose I had been honestly and long searching what 
religion I should choose, and yet I could not find that 
the argument in defence of Christianity arose to com¬ 
plete certainty, but went only so far as to give me a 
probable evidence of the truth of it; though many diffi¬ 
culties still remain, yet I should think myself obliged 
to receive and practise that religion, for the God of na¬ 
ture and reason has bound us to assent and act according 
to the best evidence we have, even though it be not abso¬ 
lute and complete; and as he is our supreme judge, his 
abounding goodness and equity will approve and acquit 
the man whose conscience honestly and willingly seeks 
the best light, and obeys it as far as he can discover it. 

But in matters of great importance in religion, let 
him join all due diligence with earnest and humble 
prayer for divine aid in his inquiries; such prayer and 
such diligence as eternal concerns require, and such as 
he may plead with courage before the judge of all. 

XV. Endeavour to apply every speculative study as 
far as possible, to some practical use, that both j ourself 


128 


OF STUDY OR MEDITATION. 


and others may be the better for it. Inquiries even in 
natural philosophy should not be mere amusement, and 
much less in the affairs of religion. Researches into the 
springs of natural bodies and their motions should lead 
men to invent happy methods for the ease and conveni¬ 
ence of human life; or at least they should be improved 
to awaken us to admire the wonderous wisdom and con¬ 
trivances of God our creator in all the works of nature. 

If we pursue mathematical speculations, they will 
inure us to attend closely to any subject, to seek and 
gain clear ideas, to distinguish truth from falsehood, to 
judge justly, and to argue strongly; and these studies do 
more directly furnish us with all the various rules of 
those useful arts of life, viz. measuring, building, sail¬ 
ing, &c. 

Even our very inquiries and disputations about vacuum 
or space, and atoms, about incommensurable quantities, 
and finite divisibility of matter, and eternal duration, 
which seems to be purely speculative, will show us some 
good practical lessons, vwll lead us to see the weakness 
of our nature, and should teach us humility in argu¬ 
ments of divine subjects and matters of sacred revelation. 
This should guard us against rejecting any doctrine 
which is expressly and evidently revealed,' though we 
cannot fully understand it. It is good sometimes to lose 
and bewilder ourselves in such studies for this very 
reason, and to attain this practical advantage, this im¬ 
provement in true modesty and spirit. 

XVI. Though we should always be ready to change 
our sentiments of things upon just conviction of their 
falsehood, yet there is not the same necessity of chang¬ 
ing our accustomed methods of reading or study and 
practice, even though we have not been led at first into 
the happiest method. Our thought may be true, though 
we may have hit upon an improper order of thinking. 
Truth does not always depend upon the most convenient 
method. There may be a certain form and order in 
which we have long accustomed ourselves to range our 
ideas and notions, which may be best for us now, though 
it was not originally best in itself. The inconveniences of 


OF FIXING THE ATTENTION. 


129 


changing may be much greater than the conveniences 
we could obtain by a new method 

As for instance, if a man in his younger days has 
ranged all his sentiments in theology in the method of 
Ames’s Medulla Theologise, or Bishop Usher’s Body ot 
Divinity, it may be much more natural and easy for him 
to continue to dispose all his further acquirements in 
the same order, though perhaps neither of those treatises 
are in themselves written jn the most perfect method. 
So when we have long fixed our cases of shelves in a 
library, and ranged our books in any particular order, 
viz. according to their languages, or according to their 
subjects, or according to the alphabetical names of the 
authors, we are perfectly well acquainted with the order 
in which they now stand, and we can find any particular 
book which we seek, or add a new book which we have 
purchased, with much greater ease than we can do in 
finer cases of shelves where the books were ranged in 
any different manner whatsoever; any different position 
of the volumes would be new and strange, and trouble¬ 
some to us, and would not countervail the inconveni¬ 
ences of a change. 

So if a man of forty years old has been taught to hold 
his pen awkwardly in his youth, and yet writes suffi¬ 
ciently well for all the purposes of his station, it is not 
worth while to teach him now the most accurate methods 
of learning that instrument; for this would create him 
more trouble without equal advantage, and perhaps he 
might never attain to write better after he has placed 
his fingers perfectly right with this new accuracy. 


CHAPTER XV. 

OF FIXING THE ATTENTION. 

A student should labour, by all proper methods, to 
acquire a study fixation of thought. Attention is a very 
necessary thing in order to improve our minds. Tho 
evidence of truth does not always appear immediately, 



130 


OF FIXING THE ATTENTION. 


nor strike the soul at first sight. It is by long attention 
and inspection that we arrive at evidence, and it is 
for want of it we judge falsely of many things. We 
make haste to determine upon a slight and a sudden 
view, we confirm our guesses which arise from a glance, 
we pa.ss a judgment while we have but a confused or 
obscure perception, and thus plunge ourselves into mis 
takes. This is like a man who, walking in a mist, or 
being at a great distance fron\any visible object (suppose 
a tree, a man, a horse, or a church,) judges much amiss 
of the figure, and situation, and colours of it, and some¬ 
times takes one for the other; whereas, if he would but 
withhold his judgment till he came nearer to it, or stay 
till clearer light comes, and then would fix his eyes longer 
upon it, he would secure himself from those mistakes. 

Now, in order to gain a greater facility of attention, 
we may observe these rules:— 

I. Get a good liking to the study of knowledge you 
would pursue. We may observe, that there is not much 
difficulty in confining the mind to contemplate what we 
have a great desire to know; and especially if they are 
matters of sense, or ideas which paint themselves upon 
the fancy. It is but acquiring a hearty good will and 
resolution to search out and survey the various properties 
and parts of such objects, and our attention will be en¬ 
gaged, if there be any delight or diversion in the study 
or contemplation of them. Therefore mathematical 
studies have a strange influence towards fixing the at¬ 
tention of the mind, and giving a steadiness to a wander¬ 
ing disposition, because they deal much in lines, figures, 
and numbers, which affect and please the sense and im¬ 
agination. Histories have a strong tendency the same 
way, for they engage the soul by a variety of sensible 
occurrences; when it hath begun, it knows not how to 
leave off; it longs to know the final event, through a 
natural curiosity that belongs to mankind. Voyages 
and travels, and accounts of strange countries and strange 
appearances, will assist in this work. This sort of study 
detains the mind by the perpetual occurrence and ex¬ 
pectation of something new, and that which may grate¬ 
fully strike the imagination. 


OF FIXING THE ATTEirtrON. IS1 

II. Sometimes we may make use of sensible things 
and corporeal images for the illustration of those notions, 
which are more abstracted and intellectual. Therefore 
diagrams greatly assist the mind in astronomy and phi¬ 
losophy; and the emblems of virtues and vices may hap¬ 
pily teach children, and pleasingly impress those useful 
moral ideas on young minds, which perhaps might be 
conveyed to them with much more difficulty by mere 
moral and abstracted discourses. 

I confess, in this practice of representing moral sub¬ 
jects by pictures, we should be cautious lest we so far 
immerse the mind in corporeal images, as to render it unfit 
to take in an abstracted and intellectual idea, or cause 
it to form wrong conceptions of immaterial things. This 
practice, therefore, is rather to be used at first, in order 
to get a fixed habit of attention, and in some cases only; 
but it can never be our constant way and method of 
pursuing all moral, abstracted, and spiritual themes. 

III. Apply yourself to those studies, and read those 
authors who draw out their subjects into a perpetual 
chain of connected reasonings, wherein the following 
parts of the discourse are naturally and easily derived 
from those which go before. Several of the mathemati¬ 
cal sciences, if not all, are happily useful for this pur¬ 
pose. This will render the labour of study delightful to 
a rational mind, and will fix the powers of the under¬ 
standing with strong attention to their proper operations 
by the very pleasure of it. Labor ipse voluptas is a happy 
proposition wheresoever it can be applied. 

IV. Do not choose your constant place of study by the 
finery of the prospects, or the most various and enter¬ 
taining scenes of sensible things. Too much light, or a 
variety of objects which strike the eye or the ear, espe¬ 
cially while they are ever in motion or often changing, 
have a natural and powerful tendency to steal away the 
mind too often from its steady pursuit of any subject 
which we contemplate; and thereby the soul gets a habit 
of silly curiosity and impertinence, of trifling and wan¬ 
dering. Vagario thought himself furnished with the 
best closet for his studies among the beauties, gaieties, 
and diversions of Kensington or Hampton Court; but 


132 


OF FIXING THE ATTENTION. 


after seven years professingto pursue learning, he was 
a mere novice still. 

V. Be not in too much haste to come to the determi¬ 
nation of a difficult or important point. Think it worth 
your waiting to find out truth. Do not give your assent 
up to either side of a question too soon, merely on this 
account, that the study of it is long &nd difficult. Rather 
be contented with ignorance for a season, and continue 
in suspense till your attention, and meditation, and due 
labour, have found out sufficient evidence on one side. 
Some are so fond to know a great deal at once, and 
love to talk of things with freedom and boldness before 
they truly understand them, that they scarcely ever al¬ 
low themselves attention enough to search the matter 
through and through. 

VI. Have a care of indulging the more sensual pas¬ 
sions and appetites of animal nature; they are great ene¬ 
mies to attention. Let not the mind of a student be 
under the influence of any warm affection to things of 
sense, when he comes to engage in the search of truth, 
or the improvement of his understanding. A person 
under the power of love, or fear, or anger, great pain, 
or deep sorrow, hath so little government of his soul, 
that he cannot keep it attentive to the proper subject of 
his meditation. The passions call away the thoughts 
with incessant importunity towards the object that ex¬ 
cited them; and if we indulge the frequent rise and rov¬ 
ing of passions, we shall thereby procure an unsteady 
and. unattentive habit of mind. 

Yet this one exception must be admitted, viz. If we 
can be so happy as to engage any passion of the soul on 
the side of the particular study which we are pursuing, 
it may have great influence to fix the attention more 
strongly to it. 

VII. It is, therefore, very useful to fix and engage the 
mind in the pursuit of any study by a consideration of 
the divine pleasures of truth and knowledge—by a sense 
of our duty to God- -by a delight in the exercise of our 
intellectual faculties—by the hope of future service to 
our fellow creatures, and glorious advantage to ourselves 
both in this world and that which is to come. These 


138 


OP ENLARGING THE, &C. 

thoughts, though they may move our affections, yet 
they do it with a proper influence: these will rather as¬ 
sist and promote our attention, than disturb or divert it 
from the subject of our present and proper meditations. 

A soul inspired with the fondest love of truth, and the 
warmest aspirations*after sincere felicity and celestial 
beatitude, will keep all its powers attentive to the inces¬ 
sant pursuit of them: passion is then refined and con¬ 
secrated to its divinest purposes. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

OF ENLARGING THE CAPACITY OF THE MIND. 

There are three things which in an especial manner 
go to make up that amplitude or capacity of mind which 
is one of the noblest characters belonging to the under¬ 
standing. 

1. When the mind is ready to take in great and sub¬ 
lime ideas without pain or difficulty. 

2. When the mind is free to receive new and strange 
ideas, upon just evidence, without great surprise or 
aversion. 

3. When the mind is able to conceive or survey many 
ideas at once without confusion, and to form a true judg 
ment derived from that extensive survey. 

The person who wants either of these characters may, 
in that respect, be said to have a narrow genius. Let us 
diffuse our meditations a little upon this subject. 

I. That is an ample and capacious mind which is 
ready to take in vast and sublime ideas without pain or 
difficulty. Persons who have never been used to con¬ 
verse with any thing but the common, little, and obvi¬ 
ous affairs of life, have acquired such a narrow or con¬ 
tracted habit of soul, that they are not able to stretch 
their intellects wide enough to admit large and noble 
thoughts; they are ready to make their domestic, daily, 
and familiar images of things the measure of all that is, 
and all that can be. 



134 


OF ENLARGING THE 


Talk to them of the vast dimensions of the planetary 
worlds; tell them that the star called Jupiter is a solid 
globe, two hundred and twenty times bigger than our 
earth; that the sun is a vast globe of fire, above a 
thousand times bigger than Jupiter, that is, two hundred 
and twenty thousand times bigger than the earth; that 
the distance from the earth to the sun is eighty-one 
millions of miles; and that a cannon bullet shot from the 
earth would not arrive at the nearest of the fixed stars 
in some hundreds of years: they cannot bear the belief 
of it; but hear all these glorious labours of astronomy as 
a mere idle romance. 

Inform them of the amazing swiftness of the motion 
of some of the smallest or the biggest bodies in nature; 
assure them, acording to the best philosophy, that the 
planet Venus (i. e our morning or evening star, which 
is near as big as our earth,) though it seems to move 
from its place but a few yards in a month, does really 
fly seventy thousand miles in an hour; tell them that 
the rays of light shoot from the sun to our earth at the 
rate of one hundred and eighty thousand miles in the 
second of a minute; they stand aghast at such sort of 
talk, and believe it no more than the tales of giants fifty 
yards high, and the rabbinical fables of Leviathan, who 
every day swallows a fish of three miles long, and is 
thus preparing himself to be the food and entertainment 
of the blessed at the feast of Paradise. 

These unenlarged souls are in the same manner dis¬ 
gusted with the wonders which the microscope has dis¬ 
covered concerning the shape, the limbs, and motions of 
ten thousand little animals, whose united bulk would 
not equal a pepper-corn: they are ready to give the lie 
to all the improvements of our senses by the invention 
of a variety of glasses, and will scarcely believe any 
tiling beyond the testimony of their naked eye without 
the assistance of art. 

Now, if we would attempt in a learned manner to re¬ 
lieve the minds that labour under this defect: 

1. It is useful to begin with some first principles of 
geometry, and lead them onward by degrees to the doc¬ 
trine of quantities which are incommensurable, or which 


CAPACITY OF THE MIND. 


135 


will admit of no common measure, though it be ever 
so small. By this means they will see the necessity of 
admitting the infinite divisibility of quantity or matter. 

This same doctrine may also be proved to their un¬ 
derstandings, and almost to their senses, by some easier 
arguments in a more obvious manner. As the very 
opening and closing of a pair of compasses will evidently 
prove, that if the smallest supposed part of matter or 
quantity be put between the points, there will be still 
less and less distances or quantities all the way between 
the legs, till you come to the head or joint; wherefore 
there is no such thing possible as the smallest quantity. 
But a little acquaintance with true philosophy and mathe¬ 
matical learning would soon teach them there are no 
limits either as to the extension of space or to the di¬ 
vision of body, and would lead them to believe there 
are bodies amazingly great or small beyond their present 
imagination. 

2. It is proper also to acquaint them with the circum¬ 
ference of our earth, which may be proved by very easy 
principles of geometry, geography, and astronomy, to be 
about twenty-four thousand miles round, as it has been 
actually found to have this dimension by mariners, who 
have sailed round it. Then let them be taught, that in 
every twenty-four hours either the sun and stars must 
all move round this earth, or the earth must turn round 
upon its own axis. If the earth itself revolve thus, then 
each house or mountain near the equator must move at 
the rate of a thousand miles in an hour: but if, as they 
generally suppose, the sun or stars move round the earth, 
then (the circumference of their several orbits or spheres 
being vastly greater than this earth) they must have a 
motion prodigiously swifter than a thousand miles an 
hour. Such a thought as this will by degrees enlarge 
their minds, and they will be taught even upon their 
own principles of the diurnal revolutions of the heavens, 
to take in some of the vast dimensions of the heavenly 
bodies, their spaces-*and motions. 

3. To this should be added the use of telescopes, to 
help them to see the distant wonders in the skies; and 
microscopes, which discover the minutest parts of little 


136 


OP ENLARGING THE 


animals, and reveal some of the finer and most curious 
works of nature. They should be acquainted also with 
some other noble inventions of modern philosophy, which 
have a great influence to enlarge the human under¬ 
standing, of which I shall take occasion to speak more 
under the next head. 

4. For the same purpose they may be invited to read 
those parts of Milton’s admirable poem, entitled Paradise 
Lost, where he describes the armies and power of angels, 
the wars and the senate of devils, the creation of this 
earth, together with the description of Heaven, Hell, 
and Paradise. 

It must be granted that poesy often deals in these 
vast and sublime ideas. And even if the subject or 
matter of the poem doth not require such amazing and 
extensive thoughts, yet tropes and figures, which are 
some of the main powers and beauties of poesy, do so 
gloriously exalt the matter, as to give a sublime imagi¬ 
nation its proper relish and delight. 

So when a boar is chased in hunting: 

His nostrils flames expire, 

And his red eyeballs roll with living fire. 

Dryden. 

When Ulysses withholds and suppresses his resent¬ 
ment. 

His wrath comprest, 

Recoiling, mutter’d thunder in his breast. 

Pope. ' . 

But especially where the subject is grand, the poet 
fails not to represent it in all its grandeur. 

So when the supremacy of a God is described: 

He sees, with equal eye, as God of all, 

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall; 

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d, 

And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 

Pope. 

These sorts of writing have a natural tendency to en¬ 
large the capacity of the mind, and make sublime ideas 
familiar to it. And instead of running always to the 
ancient heathen poesy with this design, we may with 


CAPACITY OF THE MINT). 


137 


equal, if not superior advantage, apply ourselves to con¬ 
verse with some of the best of our modern poets, as well 
as with the writings of the prophets, and the poetical 
parts of the Bible, viz. the book of Job and the Psalms, 
in which sacred authors we shall find sometimes more 
sublime ideas, more glorious descriptions, more elevated 
language, than the fondest critics have ever found in 
any of the heathen versifiers either of Greece or Rome: 
for the Eastern writers use and allow much stronger 
figures and tropes than the Western. 

Now there are many and great advantages to be de¬ 
rived from this sort of enlargement of the mind. 

It will lead us into more exalted apprehensions of the 
great God our Creator than ever we had before. It will 
entertain our thoughts with holy wonder and amaze¬ 
ment, while we contemplate that Being who created 
these various works of surprising greatness, and surpris¬ 
ing smallness; who has displayed most inconceivable 
wisdom in the contrivance of all the parts, powers, and 
motions of these little animals invisible to the naked eye; 
who has manifested a most divine extent of knowledge, 
power, and greatness, in forming, moving, and manag¬ 
ing the most extensive bulk of the heavenly bodies, and 
in surveying and comprehending all those unmeasura¬ 
ble spaces in which they move. Fancy, with all her 
images, is fatigued and overwhelmed in following the 
planetary worlds through such immense stages, such 
astonishing journeys as these are, and resigns its place 
to the pure intellect, which learns by degrees to take in 
such ideas as these, and to adore its Creator with new 
and sublime devotion. 

And not only are we taught to form juster ideas of 
the great God by these methods, but this enlargement 
of the mind carries us on to nobler conceptions of his in¬ 
telligent creatures. The mind that deals only in vulgar 
and common ideas is ready to imagine the nature and 
powers of man to come something near to God his maker, 
because wc do not see or sensibly converse with any 
beings superior to ourselves. But when the soul has 
obtained a greater amplitude of thought, it will not then 
immediately pronounce every thing to be God which is 
12 * 


138 


OF ENLARGING THE 


above man. It then learns to suppose there may be as 
many various ranks of beings in the invisible world in a 
constant gradation superior to us, as we ourselves are 
superior to all the ranks of being beneath us in this visi¬ 
ble world; even though we descend downward far be¬ 
low the ant and the worm, the snail and the oyster, to 
the least and to the dullest animated atoms which are 
discovered to us by microscopes. 

By this means we shall be able to suppose what pro* 
digious power angels, whether good or bad, must be 
furnished with, and prodigious knowledge, in order to 
oversee the realms of Persia and Grsecia of old, or if any 
such superintended the affairs of Great Britain, France, 
Ireland, Germany, &c. in our days: what power and 
speed is necessary to destroy one hundred and eighty- 
five thousand armed men in one night in the Assyrian 
camp of Sennacherib, and' all the first-born of the land 
of Egypt in another, both which are attributed to an 
angel. 

By these steps we shall ascend to form more just ideas 
of the knowledge and grandeur, the power and glory of 
the man Jesus Christ, who is intimately united to God, 
and is one with him. Doubtless he is furnished with 
superior powers to all the angels in heaven, because he 
is employed in superior work, and appointed to be the 
Sovereign Lord of all the visible and invisible worlds. 
It is his human nature in which the Godhead dwells 
bodily, that is advanced to these honours, and to this 
empire: and perhaps there is little or nothing in the 
government of the kingdoms of nature and grace but 
what is transacted by the man Jesus, inhabited by the 
divine power and wisdom, and employed as a medium 
or conscious instrument of this extensive gubernation. 

II. I proceed now to consider the next thing wherein 
the capacity or amplitude of the mind consists, and that 
is, when the mind is free to receive new and strange 
ideas and propositions upon just evidence without any 
great surprise or aversion. Those who confine them¬ 
selves within the circle of their own hereditary ideas 
and opinions, and who never give themselves leave so 
much as to examine or believe any thing besides the die- 


CAPACITY OF 1 HE MIND. 


1S9 


tates of their own family, or sect, or party, are justly 
charged with a narrowness of soul. Let us survey some 
instances of this imperfection, and then direct to the 
cure of it. 

1. Persons who have been bred up all their days with¬ 
in the smoke of their father’s chimney, or within the 
limits of their native town or village, are surprised at 
every new sight that appears, when they travel a few 
miles from home. The ploughman stands amazed at 
the shops, the trade, the crowds of people, the magnifi¬ 
cent buildings, the pomp, and riches, and equipage of 
the court and city, and would hardly believe what was 
told him before he saw it. On the other hand, the 
cockney, travelling into the country, is surprised at many 
actions of the quadruped and winged animals in the 
field, and at many common practices of rural affairs. 

If either of these happen to hear an account of the 
familiar and daily customs of foreign countries, they 
pronounce them at once indecent and ridiculous: so 
narrow are their understandings, and their thoughts so 
confined, that they know not how to believe any thing 
wise and proper besides what they have been taught to 
practise. 

This narrowness of mind should be cured by hearing 
and reading the accounts of different parts of the world, 
and the histories of past ages, and of nations and coun¬ 
tries distant from our own, especially the more polite 
parts of mankind. Nothing tends in this respect so 
much to enlarge the mind as travelling, i. e. making a 
visit to other towns, cities, or countries, besides those 
in which we were born and educated: and where our con¬ 
dition of life does not grant us this privilege, we must 
endeavour to supply the want of it by books. 

2. It is the same narrowness of mind that awakens 
the surprise and aversion of some persons, when they 
hear of doctrines and schemes in human affairs, or in 
religion, quite different from what they have embraced. 
Perhaps they have been trained up from their infancy 
in one set of notions, and their thoughts have been con¬ 
fined to one single tract both in the civil or religious 
life, without ever hearing or knowing what other opin 


140 


OF ENLARGING THE 


ions are current among mankind: or at least they have 
seen all other notions besides their own represented in a 
false and malignant light; whereupon they judge and 
condemn at once every sentiment but what their own 
party receives; and they think it a piece of justice and 
truth to lay heavy censures upon the practice of every 
sect in Christianity or politics. They have so rooted 
themselves in the opinions of their party, that they can¬ 
not hear an objection with patience, nor can they bear 
a vindication, or so much as an apology, for any set of 
principles beside their own; all the rest is nonsense or 
heresy, folly or blasphemy. 

This defect also is to be relieved by free conversation 
with persons of different sentiments: this will teach us 
to bear with patience a defence of opinions contrary 
to our own. If we are scholars, we should also read 
the objections against our own tenets, and view the 
principles of other parties, as they are represented in 
their own authors, and not merely in the citations of 
those who would confute them. We should take an 
honest and unbiassed survey of the force of reasoning 
on all sides, and bring all to the test of unprejudiced 
reasoning and divine revelation. Note, this is not to be 
done in a rash and self-sufficient manner; but with an 
humble dependance on divine wisdom and grace, while 
we walk among snares and dangers. 

By such a free converse with persons of different sects 
(especially those who differ only in particular forms of 
Christianity, but agree in the great and necessary doc¬ 
trines of it) we shall find that there are persons of good 
sense and virtue, persons of piety and worth, persons of 
much candour and goodness, who belong to different 
parties, and have imbibed sentiments opposite to each 
other. This will soften the roughness of an unpolished 
soul, and enlarge t.he avenues of our charity towards 
others, and incline us to receive them into all the degrees 
of unity and affection which the word of God requires. 

3. I might borrow further illustrations both of this 
freedom and this aversion to receive new truths from 
modern astronomy and natural philosophy. How much 
is the vulgar part t'f the world surprised at the talk of 


CAPACITY OF THE MIND. 


141 


the diurnal and annual revolutions of the earth! They 
have ever been taught by their senses, and their neigh¬ 
bours, to imagine the earth stands fixed in the centre of 
the universe, and that the sun, with all the planets and 
fixed stars, are whirled round this little globe once in 
twenty-four hours: not considering that such a diurnal 
motion, by reason of the distance of some of those heav¬ 
enly bodies, must be almost infinitely swifter, and more 
inconceivable, than any which the modern astronomers 
attribute to them. Tell these persons that the sun is 
fixed in the centre, that the earth, with all the planets, 
roll round the sun in their several periods, and that the 
moon rolls round the earth in a lesser circle, while, to¬ 
gether with the earth, she is carried round the sun; they 
cannot admit a syllable of this new and strange doc¬ 
trine, and they pronouce it utterly contrary to all sense 
and reason. 

Acquaint them that there are four moons also perpetu¬ 
ally rolling round the planet Jupiter, and carried along 
with him in his periodical circuit round the sun, which 
little moons were never known till the year 1610, when 
Galileo discovered them by his telescope: inform them 
that Saturn has five moons of the same kind attending 
him; and that the body of that planet is encompassed 
with a broad flat circular ring, distant from the planet 
twenty-one .thousand miles, and twenty-one thousand 
miles broad; they look upon these things as tales and 
fancies, and will tell you that the glasses do but delude 
your eyes with vast images; and even when they them¬ 
selves consult their own eyesight in the use of these 
tubes, the narrowness of their mind is such, that they 
will scarcely believe their senses when they dictate ideas 
so new and strange- 

And if you proceed further, and attempt to lead them 
into a belief that all these planetary worlds are habitable, 
and it is probable they are replenished with intel¬ 
lectual beings dwelling in bodies, they will deride the 
folly of him that informs them; for they resolve to be¬ 
lieve there are no habitable worlds but this earth, and 
no spirits dwelling in bodies besides mankind; and it is 
well if they do nof fix the brand of heresy on the man 


142 


OF ENLARGING THE 


who is leading them out of their long imprisonment, 
and loosing the fetters of their souls. 

There are many other things relating to mechanical 
experiments, and to the properties of the air, water, 
fire, iron, the loadstone, and other minerals and metals, 
as 'well as the doctrine of the sensible qualities, viz. col¬ 
ours, sounds, tastes, &c. which this rank of men cannot 
believe for want of a greater amplitude of mind. 

The best way to convince them is by giving them 
some acquaintance with the various experiments in 
philosophy, and proving by ocular demonstration the 
multiform and amazing operations of the air-pump, the 
loadstone, the chymical furnace, optical glasses, and 
mechanical engines. By this means the understanding 
will stretch itself by degrees, and when they have found 
there are so many new and strange things that are most 
evidently true, they will not be so forward to condemn 
every new proposition in any of the other sciences, or 
in the affairs of religion or civil life. 

III. The capacity of the understanding includes yet 
another qualification in it, and that is, an ability to re¬ 
ceive many ideas at once without confusion. The am¬ 
ple mind takes a survey of several objects with one 
glance, keeps them all within sight and present to the 
soul, that they may be compared together in their mu¬ 
tual respects; it forms just judgments, and it draws prop¬ 
er inferences from this comparison, even to a great ‘ 
length of argument, and a chain of demonstrations. 

The narrowness that belongs to human souls in gen¬ 
eral is a great imperfection and impediment to wisdom 
and happiness. There are but few persons who can 
contemplate or practise several things at once; our fac¬ 
ulties are very limited, and while we are intent upon 
one part or property of a subject, we have but a slight 
glimpse of the rest, or we lose it out of sight. But it 
is a sign of a large and capacious mind, if we can with 
one single view take in a variety of objects; or at least 
when the mind can apply itself to several objects with 
so swift a succession, and in so few moments, as attains 
almost the same ends as if it were all done in the same 
instant. 


CAPACITY OF THE MIND. 


143 


This is a necessary qualification in order to great 
knowledge and good judgment; for there are several 
things in human life, in religion, and in the sciences, 
which have various circumstances, appendices, and re¬ 
lations attending them; and without a survey of all those 
ideas which stand in connexion with and relation to each 
other, we are often in danger of passing a false judg¬ 
ment on the subject proposed. It is for this reason thero 
are so numerous controversies found among the learned 
and unlearned world, in matters of religion, as well as 
in the affairs of civil government. The notions of sin, 
and duty to God and our fellow creatures; of law, jus¬ 
tice, authority, and power; of covenant, faith, justifica¬ 
tion, redemption, and grace; of church, bishop, presby¬ 
ter, ordination, &c. contain in them such complicated 
ideas, that when we are to judge of any thing concern¬ 
ing them, it is hard to take into our view at once all the 
attendants or consequents that must and will be con¬ 
cerned in the determination of a single question: and 
yet, without a due attention to many or most of these, 
we are in danger of determining that question amiss. 

It is owing to the narrowness of our minds that we 
are exposed to the same peril in the matters of human 
duty and prudence. In many things which we do, we 
ought not only to consider the mere naked action itself, 
but the persons who act, the persons towards whom, the 
time when, the place where, the manner how, the end 
for which the action is done, together with the effects 
that must or that may follow, and all other surrounding 
circumstances: these things must necessarily be taken 
into our view, in order to determine whether the action, 
which is indifferent'in itself, be either lawful or unlaw¬ 
ful, good or evil, wise or foolish, decent or indecent, 
proper or improper, as it is so circumstantiated. 

Let me give a plain instance for the illustration of 
this matter. Mario kills a dog, which, considered mere¬ 
ly in itself, seems to be an indifferent action: now the 
dog was Timon’s, and not his own; this makes it look 
unlawful. But Timon bid him do it; this gives it an 
appearance of lawfulness again. It was done at church, 
and in time of divine service; these circumstances ad* 


144 


OF ENLARGING THE 


ded, cast on it an air of irreligion. Bat the dog flew at 
Mario, and put him in danger of his life; this relieves 
the seeming impiety of the action. Yet Mario might 
have escaped by flying thence; therefore the action ap¬ 
pears to be improper. But the dog was known to be 
mad; this farther circumstance makes it almost necessa¬ 
ry that the dog should be slain, lest he might worry the 
assembly, and do much mischief. Ye'„ again, Mario kil¬ 
led him with a pistol, which he happened to have in his 
pocket since yesterday’s journey; now hereby the whole 
congregation was terrified and discomposed, and divine 
service was broken off: this carries an appearance of 
great indecency and impropriety in it: but after all, 
when we consider a further circumstance, that Mario, 
being thus.violently assaulted by a mad dog, had no way 
of escape, and had no other weapon about him, it seems 
to take away all the colours of impropriety, indecency, 
or unlawfulness, and to allow that the preservation of 
one or many lives will justify the act as wise and good. 
Now all these concurrent appendices of the action ought 
to be surveyed, in order to pronounce with justice and 
truth concerning it. 

There are a multitude of human actions in private 
life, in domestic affairs, in traffic, in civil governments, 
in courts of justice, in schools of learning, &c. which 
have so many complicated circumstances, aspects, and 
situations, with regard to time and place, persons and 
things, that it is impossible for any one to pass a right 
judgment concerning them, without entering into most 
of these circumstances, and surveying them extensive¬ 
ly, and comparing and balancing them all aright. 

Whence by the way I may take occasion to say, how 
many thousands are there who take upon them to pass 
their censures on the personal and the domestic actions 
of others, who pronounce boldly on the affairs of the 
public, and determine the justice or madness, the wis¬ 
dom or folly of national administrations, of peace and 
war, &c. whom neither God nor men ever qualified for 
such a post of judgment! They were not capable of en¬ 
tering into the numerous concurring springs of action, 
nor had they ever taken a survey of the twentieth part 


CAPACITY OP THE MIND. 




145 


of the circumstances which were necessary for such 
judgments or censures. 

It is the narrowness of our minds, as well as the vi¬ 
ces of the will, that oftentimes prevents us from taking 
a full view of all the complicated and concurring ap¬ 
pendices that belong to human actions; thence it comes 
to pass that there is so little right judgment, so little 
justice, prudence, or decency, practised among the bulk 
of mankind; thence arise infinite reproaches and cen¬ 
sures; alike foolish and unrighteous. You see, there¬ 
fore, how needful and happy a thing it is to be posses¬ 
sed of some measure of this amplitude of soul, in order 
to make us very wise, or knowing, or just, or prudent, 
or happy. 

I confess this sort of amplitude or capacity of mind 
is in a great .measure the gift of nature, for some are 
born with much more capacious souls than others. 

The genius of some persons is so poor and limited, 
that they can hardly take in the connexion of two or 
three propositions, unless it be in matters of sense, and 
which they have learned by experience: they are utterly 
unfit for speculative studies; it is hard for them to dis¬ 
cern the difference betwixt right and wrong in matters 
of reason on any abstracted subjects; these ought never 
to set up for scholars, but apply themselves to those arts 
and professions of life which are to be learned at an 
easier rate, by slow degrees and daily experience. 

Others have a soul a little more capacious, and they 
can take in the connexion of a few propositions pretty 
well; but if the chain of consequences be a little prolix, 
here they stick and are confounded. If persons of this 
make ever devote themselves to science, they should be 
well assured of'a solid and strong constitution of body, 
and well resolved to bear the fatigue of hard labour and 
diligence in study: if the iron be bent, King Solomon 
tells u&, we must put more strength. 

But, in the third place, there are some of so bright 
and happy a genius, and so ample a mind, that they can 
take in a long train of propositions, if not at once, yet 
in,a very few moments, and judge well concerning the 
dependance of them. They can survey a variety of 

13 y 


146 • OF ENLARGING THE 

complicated ideas without fatigue or disturbance; and 
a number of truths offering themselves as it were atone 
view to their understanding, doth not perplex or con¬ 
found them. This makes a great man. 

Now, though there may be much owing to nature in 
this case, yet experience assures us, that even a lower 
degree of this capacity and extent of thought may be 
increased by diligence and application, by frequent ex¬ 
ercise, and the observation of such rules as these: 

I. Labour by all means to gain an attentive and pa¬ 
tient temper of mind, a power of confining and fixing 
your thoughts so long on any one appointed subject, till 
you have surveyed it on every side and in every situa¬ 
tion, and run through the several powers, parts, proper¬ 
ties and relations, effects and consequences of it. He 
whose thoughts are very fluttering and wandering, and 
cannot, be fixed attentively to a few ideas successively, 
will never be able to survey many and various objects 
distinctly at once, but will certainly be overwhelmed 
and confounded with the multiplicity of them. The 
rules for fixing'the attention in the former chapter are 
proper to be consulted here. 

II. Accustom yourself to clear and distinct ideas in 
every thing you think of. Be not satisfied with obscure 
and confused conceptions of things, especially where 
clearer may be obtained; for one obscure or confused 
idea, especially if it be of great importance in the ques¬ 
tion, intermingled with many clear ones, and placed in 
its variety of aspects towards them, will be in danger 
of spreading confusion over the whole scene of ideas, 
and thus may have an unhappy influence to overwhelm 
the understanding with darkness and pervert the judg¬ 
ment. A little black paint will shamefully tincture and 
spoil twenty gay colours. 

Consider yet further, that if you content yourself 
frequently with words instead of ideas, or with cloudy 
and confused notions of things, how impenetrable will 
that darkness be, and how vast and endless that confu¬ 
sion which must surround and involve the understand¬ 
ing, when many of these obscure and confused ideas 
come to be set before the soul at once; and how impos- 


CAPACITY OP THE MIND. 


141 


sible will it be to form a clear and just, judgment about 
them. 

III. Use all diligence to acquire and treasure up a 
large store of ideas and notions: take every opportunity 
to add something to your stock; and by frequent recol¬ 
lection fix them in your memory; nothing tends to con¬ 
firm and enlarge the memory like a frequent review of 
its possessions. Then the brain being well furnished 
with various traces, signatures, and images, will have a 
rich treasure always ready to be proposed or offered to 
the soul, when it directs its thought towards any par¬ 
ticular subject. This will gradually give the mind a 
faculty of surveying many objects at once, as a room 
that is richly adorned and hung round with a great va¬ 
riety of pictures strikes the eye almost at once with all 
that variety, especially if they have been well surveyed 
one by one at first: this makes it habitual and more ea¬ 
sy to the inhabitants to take in many of those painted 
scenes with a single glance or two. 

Here note, that by acquiring a rich treasure of notions, 
I do not mean only single ideas, but also propositions, 
observations, and experiences, with reasonings and argu¬ 
ments upon the various subjects that occur among 
natural and moral, common or sacred affairs; that when 
you are called to judge concerning any question, you 
will have some principles of truth, some useful axioms 
and observations, always ready at hand to direct and as¬ 
sist your judgment. 

IV. It is necessary that we should as far as possible 
entertain and lay up our daily new ideas in a regular order, 
and range the acquisitions of our souls under proper heads, 
whether of divinity, law, physics, mathematics, morality, 
politics, trade, domestic life, civility, decency, &.c. 
whether of cause, effect, substance, mode, power, pro¬ 
perty, body, spirit, &c. We should inure our minds to 
method and order continually; and when we take in any 
fresh ideas, occurrences, and observations, we should 
dispose of them in their proper places, and see how they 
stand and agree with the rest of our notions on the same 
subjects: as a scholar would dispose of a new book on a 
proper shelf among its kindred authors; or as an officer 


14S 


OF ENLARGING THE 


at the post-house in London disposes of eveiy letter he 
takes in, placing it in the box that belongs to the proper 
road or county. 

In any of these cases, if things lay all in a heap, the 
addition of any new object would increase the confusion; 
but method gives a speedy and short survey of them 
with ease and pleasure. Method is of admirable ad¬ 
vantage to keep our ideas from a confused mixture, and 
to preserve them ready for every use. The science of 
ontology, which distributes all beings, and all the affec¬ 
tions of being, whether absolute or relative, under proper 
classes, is of good service to keep our intellectual acqui¬ 
sitions in such order as that the mind may survey them 
at once. 

V. As method is necessary for the improvement of the 
mind, in order to make your treasure of ideas most use¬ 
ful, so in all your further pursuits of truth and acquire¬ 
ments of rational knowledge, observe a regular progres¬ 
sive method. Begin with the most simple, easy, and 
obvious ideas; then b}^ degrees join two, and three, and 
more of them together: thus the complicated ideas, grow¬ 
ing'up under your eye and observation, will not give the 
same confusion of thought as they would do if they were 
all offered to the mind at once, without your observing 
the original and formation of them. An eminent ex¬ 
ample of this appears in the study of arithmetic. If a 
scholar, just admitted into the school, observes his master 
performing an operation in the rule of division, his 
head is at once disturbed and confounded with the mani¬ 
fold comparisons of the numbers of the divisor and di¬ 
vidend. and the multiplication of the one and subtrac¬ 
tion of it from the other; but if he begin regularly at 
addition, and so proceed by subtraction and multiplica¬ 
tion, he will then in a few weeks be able to take in an 
intelligent survey of all those operations in division, and 
to practise them himself with ease and pleasure, each 
of which at first seemed all intricacy and confusion. 

An illustration of the like nature may be borrowed 
from geometry and algebra, and other mathematical 
practices: how easily does an expert geometrician with 
one glance of his eye take in a complicated diagram, 


CAPACITY OF THE MIND. 


149 


made up of many lines and circles, angles, and arches! 
How readily does he judgS of it, whether the demon¬ 
stration designed by it be true or false! It was by de¬ 
grees he arrived at this stretch of understanding; he 
began with a single line or a point; he joined two lines 
in an angle; he advanced to triangles and squares, poly¬ 
gons and circles; thus the powers of his understanding 
were stretched and augmented daily, till, by diligence 
and application, he acquired this extensive faculty of 
mind. 

But this advantage does not belong only to mathe¬ 
matical learning. If we apply ourselves at first in any 
science to clear and single ideas, and never hurry our¬ 
selves on to the following and more complicated parts 
of knowledge, till we thoroughly understand the fore¬ 
going, we may practice the same method of enlarging 
the capacity of the soul with success in any one of the 
sciences, or in the affairs of life and religion. 

Beginning with A, B, C, and making syllables out of 
letters, and words out of syllables, has been the founda¬ 
tion of all that glorious superstructure of arts and sci¬ 
ences which have enriched the minds and libraries of 
the learned world in several age6. These are the first 
steps by which the ample and capacious souls among 
mankind have arrived at that prodigious extent of know¬ 
ledge, which renders them the wonder and glory of the 
nation where they live. Though Plato and Cicero, 
Descartes and Mr. Boyle, Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac New¬ 
ton, were doubtless favoured by nature with a genius of 
uncommon amplitude; yet, in their early years, and first 
attempts of science, this was but limited and narrow, in 
comparison of what they attained at last. But how vast 
and capacious were those powers .which they afterwards 
acquired by patient attention and watchful observation, 
by the pursuit of clear ideas, and a regular method of 
thinking! 

VI. Another means of acquiring this amplitude and 
capacity of mind, is a perusal of difficult entangled 
questions, and of the solution of them in any science. 
Speculative and casuistical divinity will furnish us with 
many such cases and controversies. There are some 

13 * 


150 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


such difficulties in reconciling several parts of the Epistles 
of St. Paul, relating to the Jewish law and the Christian 
gospel; a happy solution whereof will require such an 
extensive view of things, and the reading of these happy 
solutions will enlarge this faculty in younger students. 
In moral and political subjects, Puffendorff’s Law of 
Nature and Nations, and several determinations therein- 
will promote the same amplitude of mind. An atten¬ 
dance on public trials, and arguments in the civil courts 
of justice, will be of good advantage for this purposes 
and after a man has studied the general principles of 
the law of nature, and the laws of England, in proper 
books, the reading the reports of adjudged cases, col¬ 
lected by men of great sagacity and judgment, will 
richly improve his mind toward acquiring this desirable 
amplitude and extent of thought, and more especially 
in persons of that profession. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 

Memory is a distinct faculty of the mind of man, very 
different from perception, judgment, and reasoning, and 
its other powers. Then we are said to remember any 
thing, when the idea of it arises in the mind with a con¬ 
sciousness at the same time that we have had this idea 
before. Our memory is our natural power of retaining 
what w.e learn, and of recalling it on every occasion. 
Therefore we can never be said to remember any thing, 
whether it be ideas or propositions, words or things, 
notions or arguments, of which we have not had some 
former idea or perception, either by sense or imagina¬ 
tion, thought or reflection; but whatsoever we learn from 
observation, books, or conversation, &c. it must all be 
laid up and preserved in the memory, if we would make 
it really useful. 

So netessary and so excellent a faculty is the memory 
of man, that all other abilities of the mind borrow from 



OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


151 


hence their beauty and perfection; for the other capacities 
of the soul are almost useless without this. To what 
purpose are all our labours in knowledge and wisdom, 
if we want memory to preserve and use what we have 
acquired? What signify all other intellectual and spirit¬ 
ual improvements, if they are lost as soon as they are 
obtained? It is memory alone that enriches the mind, 
by preserving what our labour and industry daily col¬ 
lect. In a word, there can be neither knowledge, nor 
arts, nor sciences, without memory; nor can there be 
any improvement of mankind in virtue or morals, or 
the practice of religion, without the assistance and influ¬ 
ence of this power. Without memory the soul of man 
would be but a poor, destitute, naked being, with an 
everlasting blank spread over it, except the fleeting 
ideas of the present moment. 

Memory is very useful to those who speak as well as to 
those who learn; it assists the teacher and the orator, 
as well as the scholar or the hearer. The best speeches 
and instructions are almost lost, if those who hear them 
immediately forget them. And those who are called to 
speak in public are much better heard and accepted, 
when they can deliver their discourse by the help of a 
lively genius and a ready memory, than when they are 
forced to read all that they would communicate to their 
hearers. Reading is certainly a heavier way of the con¬ 
veyance of our sentiments; and there are very few mere 
readers who have the felicity of penetrating the soul 
and awakening the passions of those who hear, by such 
a grace and power of oratory, as the man who seems to 
talk every word from his very heart, and pours out the 
riches of his own knowledge upon the people round 
about hiifi by the help of a free and copious memory. 
This gives life and spirit to every thing that is spoken, 
and has a natural tendency to make a deeper impression 
on the minds of men: it awakens the dullest spirits, 
causes them to receive a discourse with more affection 
and pleasure, and adds a singular grace and excellency 
both to the person and his oration. 

A good judgment and a good memory are very differ¬ 
ent qualifications. A person may have a very strong, 


153 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


capacious, and retentive memory, where the judgment 
is very poor and weak: as sometimes it happens in those 
who are but one degree above an idiot, who have mani¬ 
fested an amazing strength and extent of memory, but 
have hardly been able to join or disjoin two or three 
ideas in a wise and happy manner to make a solid 
rational proposition. 

There have been instances of others who have had 
but a very tolerable power of memory, yet their judg¬ 
ment has been of a much superior degree, just and wise, 
solid and excellent. 

Yet it must be acknowledged, that where a happy 
memory is found in any person, there is one good foun¬ 
dation laid for a wise and just judgment of things, where¬ 
soever the natural genius has any thing of sagacity and 
brightness to make a right use of it. A good judgment 
must always in some measure depend upon a survey 
and comparison of several things together in the mind, 
and determining the truth of some doubtful proposition 
by that survey and comparison. When the mind has, 
as it were, set all those various objects present before it, 
which are necessary to form a true proposition or judg¬ 
ment concerning any thing, it then determines that such 
and such ideas are to be joined or disjoined, to be af¬ 
firmed or denied; and this is a consistency and correspon¬ 
dence with all those other ideas and propositions which 
any way relate or belong to the same subject. Now 
there can be no such comprehensive survey of many 
things without a tolerable degree of memory; it is by re¬ 
viewing things past we learn to judge of the future: 
and it happens sometimes that if one needful or impor¬ 
tant object or idea be absent, the judgment concerning 
the thing inquired will thereby become false or mistaken. 

You will inquire then, How t comes it to pass that 
there are some persons who appear in the world of 
business, as well as in the world of learning, to have a 
good judgment, and have acquired the just character of 
prudence and wisdom, and yet have neither a very 
bright genius or sagacity of thought, nor a very happy 
memory, so that they cannot set before their minds at 
once a large scene of ideas in order to pass a judgment? 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


153 


Now we may learn from Penseroso some accounts of 
this difficulty. You shall scarcely ever find this man 
forward in judging and determining things proposed to 
him; but he always takes time, and delays, and sus¬ 
pends, and ponders things maturely, before he passes his 
judgment: then he practises a slow meditation, rumi¬ 
nates on the subject, and thus perhaps in two or three 
nights and days rouses and awakens those several ideas, 
one after* another, as he can, which are necessary in or¬ 
der to judge aright of the thing proposed, and makes 
them pass before his review in succession: this he doth 
to relieve the want both of a quick sagacity of thought 
and of a ready memory and speedy recollection; and 
this caution and practice lays the foundation of his just 
judgment and wise conduct. He surveys well before he 
judges. 

Whence I cannot but take occasion to infer one good 
rule of advice to persons of higher as well as lower 
genius, and of large as well as narrow memories, viz. 
That they do not too hastily pronounce concerning mat¬ 
ters of doubt or inquiry, where there is not an urgent 
necessity of present action. The bright genius is ready 
to be so forward as often betrays itself into great errors 
in judgment, speech, and conduct, without a continual 
guard upon itself, and using the bridle of the tongue. 
And it is by this delay and precaution that many a person 
of much lower natural abilities shall often excel persons 
of the brightest genius in wisdom and prudence. 

It is often found that a fine genius has but a feeble 
memory: for where the genius is bright, and the imagi¬ 
nation vivid, the power of memory may be too much 
neglected and lose its improvement. An active fancy 
readily wanders over a multitude of objects, and is con¬ 
tinually entertaining itself with new flying images; it 
runs through a number of new scenes or new pages with 
pleasure, but without due attention, and seldom suffers 
itself to dwell long enough upon any one of them, to 
make a deep impression thereof upon the mind, and 
commit it to lasting remembrance. This is one plain 
and obvious reason why there are some persons of very 
bright parts and active spirits, who have but short and 


154 


OP IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


narrow powers of remembrance: for having riches of 
their own, they are not solicitous to borrow. 

And as such a quick and various fancy and invention 
may be some hincierance to the attention and memory, 
bo a mind of a good retentive ability, and which is ever 
crowding its memory with things which .it learns and 
reads continually, may prevent, restrain, and cramp the 
Invention itself. The memory of Lectorides is ever 
ready, upon all occasions, to offer to his mind something 
out of other men’s writings or conversations, and is pre¬ 
senting him with the thoughts of other persons perpetu¬ 
ally: thus the man who had naturally a good flowing 
invention, does not suffer himself to pursue his own 
thoughts. Some persons who have been blessed by na¬ 
ture with sagacity and no contemptible genius, have 
too often forbid the exercise of it, by tying themselves 
down to the memory of the volumes they have read, 
and the sentiments of other men contained in them. 

Where the memory has been almost constantly em¬ 
ploying itself in scraping together new acquirements, 
and where there has not been a judgment sufficient to 
distinguish what things were fit to be recommended and 
treasured up in the memory, and what things were idle, 
useless, or needless, the mind has been filled with a 
wretched heap of hodgepotch of words or ideas; and the 
soul may be said to have had large possessions, but no 
true riches. 

I have read in some of Mr. Milton’s writings a very 
beautiful simile, whereby he represents the books of the 
Fathers, as they are called in the Christian Church. 
Whatsoever, saith he, Old Time with his huge drag-net 
has conveyed down to us along the stream of ages, 
whether it be shells or shell-fish, jewels or pebbles, sticks 
or straws, sea-weeds or mud, these are the ancients, these 
are the fathers. The case is much the same with the 
memorial possessions of the greatest part of mankind. 
A few useful ^things, perhaps, mixed and confounded 
with many trifles, and all manner of rubbish, fill up 
their memories and compose their intellectual posses¬ 
sions. It is a great happiness therefore to distinguish 
things aright, and to lay up nothing in the memory but 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


155 


tvhat has some just value in it, and is worthy to be num¬ 
bered as a part of our treasure. 

Whatosever improvements arise to the mind of man 
from the wise exercise of his own reasoning powers, 
these may be called his proper manufactures; and what¬ 
soever he borrows from abroad, these may be termed his 
proper treasures; both together make a wealthy and a 
happy mind. 

How many excellent judgments and reasonings are 
framed in the mind of a man of wisdom and study in 
a length of years! How many worthy and admirable 
notions has he been possessed of in life, both by his own 
reasonings, and by his prudent and laborious collec¬ 
tions in the course of his reading! But, alas! how many 
thousands of them vanish away again and are lost in 
empty air, for want of a stronger and more retentive 
memory! When a young practitioner in the law was 
once said to contest a point of debate with that great 
lawyer in the last age, Serjeant Maynard, he is reported 
to have answered him, “ Alas! young man, I have forgot 
much more law than ever thou hast learnt or read.” 

What an unknown and unspeakable happiness would 
it be to a man of judgment, and who is engaged in the 
pursuit of knowledge, if he had but a power of stamping 
all his own best sentiments upon his memory in some 
indelible characters; and if he could but imprint every 
valuable paragraph and sentiment of the most excellent 
authors he has read, upon his mind, with the same speed 
and facility with which he read them! If a man of 
good genius and sagacity could but retain and survey 
all those numerous, those wise and beautiful ideas at 
once, which have ever passed through his thoughts upon 
any one subject, how admirably would he be furnished to 
pass a just judgment about all present objects and oc¬ 
currences! What a glorious entertainment and pleasure 
would felicitate his spirit, if he could grasp all these in 
a single survey, as the skilful eye of a painter runs over 
a fine and complicate piece of history wrought by the 
hand of a Titian or a Raphael, views the whole scene 
at once, and feeds himself with the extensive delight! 
But these are joys that do not belong to mortality. 


156 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


Thus far I have indulged some loose and unconnected 
thoughts and remarks with regard to the different powers 
of wit, memory, and judgment. For it was very diffi¬ 
cult to throw them into a regular form or method with¬ 
out more room. Let us now with more regularity treat 
of the memory alone. 

“ Though the memory be a natural faculty of the mind 
of man, and belongs to spirits which are not incarnate— 
though the mind itself is immaterial—a principle super- 
added to matter, yet the brain is the instrument which 
it employs in all its operations. Though it is not mat¬ 
ter, yet it works by means of matter, and its operations 
are materially affected by the condition of the brain, its 
principal organ. Through the medium of the brain and 
nervous system the mind obtains a knowledge of the 
external world. The memory receives impressions of 
facts and evdhts, and treasures up their images ; and 
it also becomes the retentive receptacle of the ideas and 
conclusions derived from meditation and reflection. 

The immaturity of the brain in early life renders it 
incapable of becoming the instrument of powerful mental 
actions, and the images which are then impressed upon 
the memory are chiefly those of facts and events. The 
memory grows from the period of infancy, and may be 
greatly improved by proper exercise, or injured by sloth. 

The improvement of the memory requires the culti¬ 
vation of habits of attention, or of intense application of 
the mipd to whatever is, at the time, its more immediate 
object of pursuit. Slight impressions are soon forgotten, 
but whatever is impressed upon the mind by fixed atten¬ 
tion and close thought, is indelibly stamped upon the 
memory, and becomes as durable as the mind itself. 

Many persons of advanced age will tell long stories 
of things which occurred during the early period of their 
lives, and were so deeply engraven upon the memory 
as to be retained, in their most minute particulars through 
a long succession of years. 

The memory is more or less affected by various dis¬ 
eases of the body ; chiefly from injuries of the head, 
affections of the brain, fever, and diseases of extreme 
debility. Numerous cases are on record of persons who, 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


157 


from the influence of disease, have recovered a know¬ 
ledge of thipgs long forgotten; and of others who have 
lost all knowledge of persons and things. A man who 
was born in France, but had spent most of his life in 
England, and entirely lost the habit of speaking French, 
received an injury on the head, and, during the illness 
which followed, always spoke in the French language. 
Another, when recovering from an injury of the head, 
spoke the Welsh language, which he learned in child¬ 
hood, but had subsequently entirely forgotten. Another 
entirely lost his mental faculties during a severe illness. 
For several weeks subsequent to his recovery he re¬ 
membered nothing, and understood nothing ; but at the 
expiration of two or three months he gradually recovered 
his memory and other faculties. 

Impressions which are deeply engraven upon the 
mind appear never to be effaced ; but the power of 
calling them up is sometimes lost, until sickness or some 
other cause restores that power. The faculties of the 
mind are greatly assisted or injured by the condition of 
the brain, which in most aged people relaxes its energies, 
and a want of close attention to passing events prevents 
lasting impressions from being made on the memory. 

The brain being the chief instrument of the mind, 
whatever tends to promote a healthful and vigorous 
condition of that organ may help to preserve the 
memory; but excess of wine, or luxury of any kind, 
as well as excess in study and application to the busi¬ 
ness of life, may injure the memory by overstraining 
and weakening the brain.” 

A good memory has these several qualifications. 

1. It is ready to receive and admit, with great ease, 
the various ideas both of words and things which are 
learned or taught. 2 . It is large and copious to treas¬ 
ure up these ideas in great number and variety. 3. It 
is strong and durable to retain for a considerable time 
those words or thoughts which are committed to it. 4. 
It is faithful and active to suggest and recollect, upon 
every proper occasion, all those words or thoughts which 
have been recommended to its care, or treasured up 
in it. 


14 


158 


OF IMPROVIKG THE MEMORY. 


Now in every one of these qualifications a Memory 
may be injured or may be improved: yet I shall not in¬ 
sist distinctly on these particulars, but only in general 
propose a few rules or directions whereby this noble fac¬ 
ulty of memory, in all its branches and qualifications, 
may be preserved or assisted, and show what are the 
practices that both by reason and experience have been 
found of happy influence to this purpose. 

There is one great and general direction which be¬ 
longs to the improvement of other powers as well as of 
the memory, and that is, to keep it always in due and 
proper exercise. Many acts by degrees form a habit, 
and thereby the ability or power is strengthened, and 
made more ready to appear again in action. Our mem¬ 
ories should be used and inured from childhood to bear 
a moderate quantity of knowledge let into them early, 
and they will thereby become strong for use and service. 
As any limb well and duly exercised grows stronger, the 
nerves of the body are corroborated thereby. Milo took 
up a calf, and daily carried it on his shoulders; as the 
calf grew, his strength grew also, and he at last arrived 
at firmness of joints enough to bear the bull. 

Our memories will be in a great m’easure moulded 
and formed, improved or injured, according to the ex¬ 
ercise of them. If we never use them, they will be al¬ 
most lost. Those who are wont to converse or read 
but a few things only, will retain but a few in their 
memory; those who are used to remember things but for 
an hour, and' charge their memories with it no longer, 
will retain them but an hour before they vanish. And 
let words be remembered as well as things, that so you 
may acquire a copia verborum as well as rerum , and be 
more ready to express your mind on all occasions. 

Yet there should be a caution given in such cases: the 
memory of a child or any infirm person should not be 
overburdened; for a limb or a joint may be overstrained 
by being too much loaded, and its natural power never 
be recovered. Teachers should wisely judge of the 
power and constitution of youth, and impose no more 
on them than they are able to bear with cheerfulness 
and improvement. 


OP IMPROVING THE MEMORY 159 

And particularly they should take care that the rnem- 
Drv of the learner be not too much crowded with a tu¬ 
rn iltuous heap or overbearing multitude of documents 
or ideas at one time: this is the way to remember noth¬ 
ing; one idea effaces another. An overgreedy grasp 
does not retain the largest handful. But it is the exer¬ 
cise of memory with a due moderation, that is one ge¬ 
neral rule towards the improvement of it. 

The particular rules are such as these: 

1. Due attention and diligence to learn and know 
things, which we would commit to our remembrance, is 
a rule of great necessity in this case. When the atten¬ 
tion is strongly fixed to any particular subject, all that 
is said concerning it makes a deeper impression upon 
the mind. There are some persons who complain they 
cannot remember divine or human discourses which they 
hear, when, in truth, their thoughts are wandering half 
the time, or they hear with such coldness and indiffer- 
ency, and a trifling temper of spirit, that it is no wonder 
the things which are read or spoken make but a slight 
impression on the mind, and get no firm footing in the 
seat of memory, but soon vanish and are lost. 

It is needful, therefore, if we would maintain a long 
remembrance of the things which we read, or hear, that 
we should engage our delight and pleasure in those sub¬ 
jects, and use the other methods which are before pre¬ 
scribed in order to fix the attention. Sloth, indolence, 
and idleness, will no more bless the mind with intellec¬ 
tual riches, than it will fill the hand with gain, the field 
with corn, or the purse with treasure. 

Let it be added also, that not only the slothful and 
the negligent deprive themselves of proper knowledge 
for the°furniture of their memory, bui such as appear 
to have active spirits, who are ever skimming over the 
surface of things with a volatile temper, will fix nothing 
in their mind. 3 Vario will spend whole mornings in 
running over loose and unconnected pages, and with 
fresh curiosity is ever glancing over new words and 
ideas that strike his present fancy; - he is fluttering over 
a thousand objects of art and science, and yet treasures 
up but little knowledge. There must be the labour and 


160 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


the diligence of close attention to particular subjects of 
thought and inquiry, which only can impress what we 
read or think of upon the remembering faculty of man. 

2. Clear and distinct apprehension of the things 
which we commit to memory is necessary in order to 
make them stick and dwell there. If we would remem¬ 
ber words, or learn the names of persons or things, wo 
should have them recommended to our memory by a 
clear and distinct pronunciation, spelling, or writing. 
If we would treasure up the ideas of things, notions, 
propositions, arguments, and sciences, these should be 
recommended also to our memory by a clear and dis¬ 
tinct perception of them. Faint, glimmering, and con¬ 
fused ideas will vanish like images seen in twilight. 
Every thing which we learn should be conveyed to the 
understanding in the plainest expressions, without any 
ambiguity, that we may not mistake what we desire to 
remember. This is a general rule, whether we would 
employ the memory about words or things, though it 
must be confessed that mere sounds and words are much 
harder to get by heart than the knowledge of things and 
real images. 

For this reason take heed (as I have often before 
warned) that you do not take up with words instead of 
things, nor mere sounds instead of real sentiments and 
ideas. Many a lad forgets what has been taught him, 
merely because he never well understood it; he never 
clearly and distinctly took in the meaning of those 
sounds and syllables which he was required to get by 
heart. 

This is one true reason why boys make so poor a 
proficiency in learning the Latin tongue under masters 
who teach them by grammars and rules written in Lat¬ 
in, of which I have spoken before. And this is a com¬ 
mon case with children when they learn their catechisms 
in their early days. The language and the sentiments 
conveyed in those catechisms are far above the under¬ 
standing of creatures of that age, and they have no tol¬ 
erable ideas under the words. This makes the answers 
much harder to be remembered, and in truth they learn 
nothing but w ords without ideas; and if they are ever 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


161 


so perfect in repeating the words, yet they know noth¬ 
ing of divinity. 

And for this reason it is a necessary rule in teaching 
children the principles of religion, that they should be 
expressed in very plain, easy, and familiar words, 
brought as low as possible down to their understandings, 
according to their different ages and capacities, and 
thereby they will obtain some useful knowledge when 
the words are treasured up in their memory, because at 
the same time they will treasure up those divine ideas too. 

3. Method and regularity in the things we commit to 
memory, is necessary in order to make them take more 
effectual possession of the mind, and abide there long. 
As much as systematical learning is decried by some 
vain and humorous triflers of the age, it is certainly the 
happiest way to furnish the mind with a variety of 
knowledge. 

Whatsoever you would trust to your memory, let it 
be disposed in a proper method, connected well togeth¬ 
er, and referred to distinct and particular heads or clas¬ 
ses, both general and particular. An apothecary’s boy 
will much sooner learn all the medicines in his master’s 
shop, when they are ranged in boxes or on shelves ac¬ 
cording to their distinct natures, whether herbs, drugs, 
or minerals, whether leaves or roots, whether chymical 
or galenical preparations, whether simple or compound, 
&c. and when they are placed in some order according 
to their nature, their fluidity, or their consistence, &c. 
in phials, bottles, gallipots, cases, drawers, &c.; so the 
genealogy of a family is more easily learnt when you 
begin at some great-grandfather as the root, and distin¬ 
guish the stock, the large boughs, the lesser branches, 
the twigs, and the buds, till you come down to the present 
infants of the house. And, indeed, all sorts of arts and 
sciences taught in a method something of this kind are 
more happily committed to the mind or memory. 

I might give another plain simile to confirm the truth 
of this. What horse or carriage can take up and bear 
away all the various rude and unwieldy loppings of a 
branchy tree at once? But if they are divided yet fur¬ 
ther, so as to be laid close, and bound up in a more uni- 

/ 4 * 


162 OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 

v 

form manner into several faggots, perhaps those lop¬ 
pings may be all carried at one single load or burden. 

The mutual dependance of things on each other help 
the memory of both. A wise connexion of the parts 
of a discourse, in a rational method, gives great advan¬ 
tage to the reader or hearer in order to his remembrance 
of it. Therefore many mathematical demonstrations 
in a long train may be remembered much better than a 
heap of sentences which have no connexion. The book 
of Proverbs, at least from the tenth chapter and on¬ 
wards, is much harder to remember than the book of 
Psalms, for this reason; and some Christians have told 
me that they remember what is written in the Epistle 
to the Romans, and that to the Hebrews, much better 
than many others of the sacred Epistles, because there 
is more exact method and connexion observed in them. 

He that would learn to remember a sermon which he 
hears, should acquaint himself by degrees with the 
method in which the several important parts of it are 
delivered. It is a certain fault in a multitude of preach¬ 
ers, that they utterly neglect method in their ha¬ 
rangues; or at least they refuse to render their method 
visible and sensible to the hearers. One would be tempt¬ 
ed to think it was for fear lest their auditors should re¬ 
member too much of their sermons, and prevent their 
preaching them three or four times over: but I have can¬ 
dour enough to persuade myself that the true reason is, 
they imagine it to be a more modish way of preaching 
without particulars: I am sure it is a much more useless 
one. And it would be of great advantage both to the 
speaker and hearer to have discourses for the pulpit cast 
into a plain and easy method, and the reasons or infer¬ 
ences ranged in a proper order, and that under the words, 
first, secondly, and thirdly, however they may be now 
fancied to sound unpolite or unfashionable; but Arch¬ 
bishop Tillotson did not think so in his days. 

4. A frequent review, and careful repetition of the 
things we would learn, and an abridgment of them in 
a narrow compass for this end, has a great influence to 
fix them in the memory; therefore it is that the rules of 
grammar, and useful examples of the variation of words. 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


16S 


and the peculiar forms of speech in any language, are 
so often appointed by the masters as lessons for the schol¬ 
ars to be frequently repeated; and they are contracted 
into tables for frequent review, that what is not fixed in 
the mind at first, may be stamped upon the memory by 
a perpetual survey and rehearsal. 

Repetition is so very useful a practice, that Mnemon, 
even from his youth to his old age, never read a book 
without making some small points, dashes, or hooks, in 
the margin, to mark what parts of the discourse were 
proper for review: and when he came to the end of a 
section or chapter; he always shut his book, and recol¬ 
lected all the sentiments or expressions he had remark¬ 
ed, so that he could give a tolerable analysis and abstract 
of every treatise he had read, just after he had finished 
it. Thence he became so well furnished with a rich 
variety of knowledge. 

Even when a person is hearing a sermon or a lecture, 
he may give his thoughts leave now and then to step 
back so far as to recollect the several heads of it from 
the beginning, two or three times before the lecture or 
sermon is finished: the omission or the loss of a sentence 
or two among the amplifications is richly compensated 
by preserving in the mind the method and order of the 
whole discourse in the most important branches of it. 

If we would fix in the memory the discourses we hear, 
or what we design to speak, let us abstract them into 
brief compends, and review them often. Lawyers and 
divines have need of such assistances: they write down 
short notes or hints of the principal heads of what they 
desire to commit to their memory in order to preach or 
plead, for such abstracts or epitomes may be reviewed 
much sdoner, and the several amplifying sentiments or 
sentences will be more easily invented or recollected in 
their proper places. The art of shorthand is of excel¬ 
lent use for this as well as for other purposes. It must 
be acknowledged, that those who scarcely ever take a 
pen in their hand to write short notes or hints of what 
they are to speak or learn, who never try to cast things 
into method, or to contract the survey of them in order 
to commit them to their memory, had need have a 


7 


164 OF IMPROVING TIIE MEMORY. 

double degree of that natural power of retaining and re¬ 
collecting what they read, or hear, or intend to speak. 

Do not plunge yourself into other businesses or studies, 
amusements or recreations, immediately after you have 
attended upon instruction, if you can well avoid it. Get 
time if possible to recollect the things you have heard, 
that they may not be washed all away from the mind 
by a torrent of other occurrences or engagements, nor 
lost in the crowd or clamour of other loud or importunate 
affairs. 

Talking over the things which you have read with 
your companions on the first proper opportunity you 
have for it, is a most useful manner of review or repeti¬ 
tion, in order to fix them upon the mind. Teach them 
your younger friends, in order to establish your own 
knowledge while you communicate it to them. The 
animal powers of your tongue and of your ear, as well 
as your intellectual faculties, will all join together to 
help the memory. Hermetas studied hard in a remote 
corner of the land, and in solitude, yet he became a 
very learned man. He seldom was so happy as to en¬ 
joy suitable society at home, and therefore he talked 
over to the fields and the woods in the evening what he 
had been reading in the day, and found so considerable 
advantage by this practice that he recommended it to 
all his friends, since he could set his probatum to it for 
seventeen years. 

6. Pleasure and delight in the things we learn give 
great assistance towards the remembrance of them. 
Whatsoever therefore we desire that a child should com¬ 
mit to his memory, make it as pleasant to him as possi¬ 
ble; endeavour to search his genius and his temper, and 
let him take in the instructions you give h>m or the 
lessons you appoint him, as far as may be, in a way 
suited to his natural inclination. Fabellus would never 
learn any moral lessons till they were moulded into the 
form of some fiction or fable like those of iEsop, or till 
they put on the appearance of a parable, like those 
wherein our blessed Saviour taught the ignorant world: 
then he remembered well the emblematical instructions 
that were given him, and learnt to practice the moral 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


165 


sense and meaning of them. Young Spectorius was 
taught virtue by setting before him a variety of exam¬ 
ples of the various good qualities in human life; and he 
was appointed daily to repeat some story of this kind 
out Valerius Maximus. The same lad was early instruct¬ 
ed to avoid the common vices and follies of youth in the 
same manner. This is akin to the method whereby the 
Lacedaemonians trained up their children to hate drunk¬ 
enness and intemperance, viz. by bringing a drunken 
man into their company, and showing them what a beast 
he had made of himself. Such visible and sensible forms 
of instruction will make long and useful impressions 
upon the memory. 

Children may be taught to remember many things 
in a way of sport and play. Some young creatures 
have learnt their letters and syllables, and the pronounc¬ 
ing and spelling of words, by having them pasted or 
written upon many little flat tablets or dies. Some have 
been taught vocabularies of different languages, having 
a word in one tongue written on one side of these tablets, 
and the same word in another tongue on the other side 
of them. 

There might be also many entertaining contrivances 
for the instruction of children in several things relating 
to geometry, geography, and astronomy, in such allur¬ 
ing and illusory methods, which would make a most 
agreeable and lasting impression on their minds. 

6. The memory of useful things may receive con¬ 
siderable aid if they are thrown into verse; for the num¬ 
bers and measures, and rhyme, according to the poesy 
of different languages, have a considerable influence 
upon mankind, both to make them receive with more 
ease the things proposed to their observation, and pre¬ 
serve them longer in their remembrance. How many 
are there of the common affairs of human life which 
have been taught in early years by the help of rhyme, 
and have been like nails fastened in a sure place, and 
riveted by daily use! 

So the number of the days of each month are engraven 
on the memory of thousands by these four lines:— 


i 


166 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


Thirty day9 hath September, 

June, and April, and November; 

February twenty-eight alone; 

All the rest have thirty-one. 

So lads have been taught frugality by surveying and 
judging of their own expences by these three lines:— 

Compute the pence but of one day’s expence, 

So many pounds, and angels, groats, and pence, 

Are spent in one whole year’s circumference. 

For the number of days in’a year is three hundred and 
sixty-five, which number of pence makes one pound, 
one angel, one groat, and one penny. 

So have rules of health been prescribed in the book 
called Schola Salernitani , and many a person has pre¬ 
served himself doubtless from evening gluttony, and 
the pains and diseases consequent upon it, by these two 
lines:— 

Ex magna coena stomacho fit maxima poena: 

Ut si9 node levis, sit libi coena brevis. 

Englished:— 

To be easy all night 
Let your supper be light; 

Or else you’ll complain 
Of a stomach in pain. 

And a hundred proverbial sentences in various lan¬ 
guages are formed into rhyme or a verse, whereby they 
are made to stick upon the memory of old and young. 

It is from this principle that moral rules have been 
cast into a poetic mould from all antiquity. So the 
golden verses of the Pythagoreans in Greek; Cato’s dis¬ 
tiches De Moribus in Latin; Lilly’s precepts to scholars, 
called Qui Mihi, with many others; and this has been 
done with very good success. A line or two of this 
kind, recurring on the memory, have often guarded 
youth from a temptation to vice and folly, as well as 
put them in mind of their present duty. 

It is for this reason also that the genders, declensions, 
and variations of nouns and verbs have been taught in 
verse, oy those who have complied with the prejudice 
of long custom, to teach English children the Latin 


/ 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


167 


tongue by rules written in Latin: and truly those rude 
heaps of words and terminations of an unknown tongue 
would have never been so happily learnt by heart by a 
hundred thousand boys without this smoothing artifice; 
nor indeed do I know any thing else can be said with 
good reason to excuse or relieve the obvious absurdities 
of this practice. 

When you would remember new things or words, en¬ 
deavour to associate and connect them with some words 
or things which you have well known before, and which 
are fixed and established in your memory. This asso¬ 
ciation of ideas is of great importance and force, and 
may be of excellent use in many instances of human 
life. One idea which is familiar to the mind, connected 
with others which are new and strange, will bring those 
new ideas into easy remembrance. Maronides had got 
the first hundred lines of Virgil’s iEneis printed upon his 
memory so perfectly, that he knew not only the order 
and number of every word, but each verse also; and by 
this means he would undertake to remember two or 
three hundred names of persons or things, by some 
rational or fantastic connexion between some word in the 
verse, and some letter, syllable, property, or. accident 
of the name or thing to be remembered, even though 
they had been repeated but once or twice at most in his 
hearing. Animato practised much the same art of me¬ 
mory, by getting the Latin names of twenty-two ani¬ 
mals into his head according to the alphabet, viz. asinus, 
basilicus, canis, draco, elephas, felis, gryphus, hircus, 
iuvenis, Ieo, mulus, noctua, ovis, phnthera, quadrupes, 
rhinoceros, simia, taurus, ursus, xiphius, hyaena or yaena, 
zibetta. Most of these he divided also into four parts, 
viz. head and body, feet, fins, or wings, and tail, and by 
some arbitrary or chimerical attachments of each of 
these to a word or thing, which he desired to remember, 
he committed them to the care of his memory, and that 
with good success. 

It is also by this association of ideas that we may 
better imprint any new idea upon the memory, by join¬ 
ing with it some circumstance of the time, place, com¬ 
pany, &c. wherein we first observed, heard, or learned 


168 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


it. If we Would recover an absent idea, it is useful to 
recollect those circumstances of time, place, &c. The 
substance will many times be recovered and brought to 
the thoughts by recollecting the shadow: a man recurs 
to our fancy by remembering his garment, his size or 
stature, his office or employment, &c. A beast, bird, or 
fish, by its colour, figure or motion, by the cage, court¬ 
yard, or cistern wherein it was kept. 

To this head also we may refer that remembrance of 
names and things which may be derived from our re¬ 
collection of their likeness to other things which we 
know; either their resemblance in name, character, form, 
accident; or any thing that belongs to them. An idea 
or word which has been lost or forgotten, has been often 
recovered by hitting upon some other kindred word or 
idea which has the nearest resemblance to it, and that 
in the letters, syllables, or sound of the name, as well as 
properties of the thing. 

If we would remember Hippocrates, or Galen, or 
Paracelsus, think of a physician’s name beginning with 
H, G, or P. If we will remember Ovidius Naso, we 
may represent a man with a large nose; if Plato, we 
may think upon a person with large shoulders; if Cris- 
pus, we shall fancy another with curled hair; and so of 
other things. 

And sometimes a new or strange idea may be fixed 
in the memory by considering its contrary or opposite. 
So if we cannot hit on the word Goliath, the remem¬ 
brance of David may recover it; or the name of a Tro¬ 
jan may be recovered by thinking of a Greek, &c. 

8. In such cases wherein it maybe done, seek after a 
local memory, or a remembrance of what you have 
read by the side or page of where it is written or print¬ 
ed; whether the right or the left, whether at the top, 
the middle, or the bottom, whether at the beginning 
of a chapter or a paragraph, or the end of it. It has 
been some advantage, for this reason, to accustom one’s 
self to books of the same edition; and it has been of con¬ 
stant and special use to divines and private Christians 
to be furnished with several Bibles of the same edition; 
that wheresoever they are, whether in their chamber. 


( 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 169 

I 

parlour, or study, in the younger or elder yeais of life, 
they may find the chapters and verses standing in the 
same parts of the page. 

This is also a great convenience to be observed by 
printers in the new editions of grammars, psalms, Tes¬ 
taments, &c. to print every chapter, paragraph, or verse, 
in the same part of the page as the former, that so it 
may yield a happy assistance to those young learners 
who find, and even feel, the advantage of a local memory. 

9. Let every thing we desire to remember be fairly 
and distinctly written and divided into periods, with 
large characters in the beginning, for by this means we 
shall the more readily imprint the matter and words on 
our minds, and recollect them with a glance, the more 
remarkable the writing appears to the eye. Tiiis sense 
conveys the ideas to the fancy better than any other; 
and what we have seen is not so soon forgotten as what 
we have only heard. What Horace affirms of the mind 
or passions may be said also of the memory:— 

Segnius irritant animos demissa peraurem, 

Q,uam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae 
Ipse sibi tradit spectator. 

Applied thus in English: 

Sounds which address the year are lost and die 
In one short hour; but that which strikes the eye 
Lives long upon the mind; the faithful sight 
Engraves the knowledge with a beam of light. 

For the assistance of weak memories the first letters 
or words of every period, in every page, may be writ¬ 
ten in distinct colours; yellow, green, red, black, &c.; 
and if you observe the same order of colours in the fol¬ 
lowing sentences, it will be still the better. This will 
make a greater impression, and may much aid the 
memory. 

Under this head we may take notice of the advantage 
which the memory gains by having the several objects 
of our learning drawn out into schemes and tables; mat¬ 
ters of mathematical science and natural philosophy are 
not only let into the understanding, but preserved in the 
memory by figures and diagrams. The situation of the 
several parts of the earth are better learned by one day’s 

15 


no 


OF IMPROVING THE MEMORY. 


conversing with a map or a sea-chart, than by merely 
reading the description of their situation a hundred 
times over in books of geography. So the constella¬ 
tions in astronomy, and their position in the heavens, 
are more easily remembered by hemispheres of the stars 
well drawn. It is by having such sort of memorials, 
figures, and tables, hung round our studies or places of 
residence or resort, that our memory of these things 
will be greatly assisted and improved, as I have shown 
at large in the twentieth chapter, of the use of sciences 

I might add here also, that once writing over what 
we design to remember, and giving due attention to 
what we write, will fix it more ih the mind than reading 
it five times. And in the same manner, if we had a 
plan of the naked lines of longitude and latitude pro¬ 
jected on the meridian printed for this use, a learner 
might much more speedily advance himself in the 
knowledge of geography by bis own drawing the fig¬ 
ures of all the parts of the world upon it by imitation, 
than by many days survey of a map of the world so 
printed.—The same also may be said concerning the 
constellations of heaven, drawn by the learner on a na¬ 
ked projection of the circles of the sphere upon the 
plane of the equator. 

10. It has sometimes been the practice of men to im¬ 
print names or sentences on their memory by taking the 
first letters of every word of that sentence, or of those 
names, and making a new word of them. So the name 
of the Maccabees is borrowed from the first -letters of 
the Hebrew words, which make that sentence Mi Ca- 
moka Bealim Jehovah, i. e. Who is like thee among 
the gods? which was written on their banners. Jesus 
Christ our Saviour has been called a fish, in Greek 
iXQTv by the fathers, because these are the first letters 
in those Greek words, Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the Sa-- 
viour. So the word Vibgyor teaches us to remember 
the order of the seven original colours, as they appear 
by the sunbeams cast through a prism on white paper, 
or formed by the sun in a rainbow, according to the dif¬ 
ferent refrangibility of the rays, viz. violet, indigo, blue, 
green, yellow, orange, and red. 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 


171 


In this manner the Hebrew grammarians teach their 
students to remember the letters which change their 
natural pronunciation by the inscription of a dagesh, 
by gathering these six letters, beth, gimel, daleth, caph, 
pe, and thau, into the word Begadchepat; and that they 
might not forget the letters named Quiescent, viz. a, h, 
v, and i, they are joined in the word Ahevi. So the uni¬ 
versal and particular propositions in logic are remem¬ 
bered by the words Barbara, Celarent, Darii, &c. 

Other artificial helps to memory may be just men¬ 
tioned here. 

Dr. Grey, in his book called Memoria Teehnica, has 
exchanged the figure's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, for some 
consonants, b, d, t, f, 1, y, p, k, n, and some vowels, a, 
e, i, o, u, and several diphthongs, and thereby formed 
words that denote numbers, which may be more easily 
remembered: and Mr. Lowe has improved his scheme 
in a small pamphlet called Mnemonics Delineated; 
whereby in seven leaves he has comprised almost an in¬ 
finity of things, in science and in common life, and re¬ 
duced them to a sort of measure like Latin verse; though 
the words may be supposed to be very barbarous, being 
such a mixture of vowels and consonants as are very 
unfit for harmony. 

But after all, the very writers on this subject have 
confessed that several of those artificial helps of mem¬ 
ory are so cumbersome as not to be suitable to' every 
temper or person; nor are they of any use for the deliv¬ 
ery of a discourse by memory, nor of much service in 
learning the sciences: but they may be sometimes prac¬ 
tised for the assisting our remembrance of certain-sen¬ 
tences, numbers, and names. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 

1. When a subject is proposed to your thoughts, con¬ 
sider whether it be knowable at all, or no; and then 
whether it be not above th? reach of your inquiry and 



172 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 


knowledge in the present state; and remember, that it 
is great waste of time to busy yourselves too much 
amongst unsearchables: the chief use of these studies is 
to keep the mind humble, by finding its own ignorance 
and weakness. 

II. Consider again whether the matter be worthy of 
vour inquiry at all; and then how far it may be worthy 
of your present search and labour according to your age, 
vour time of life, your station in the world, your capa¬ 
city, your profession, your chief design and end. There 
are many things worth inquiry to one man, which are 
not so to another; and there are things that may de¬ 
serve the study of the same persdn in one part of life, 
which would be improper or impertinent at another. 
To read books of the art of preaching, or disputes about 
church discipline, are proper for a theological student 
in the end of his academical studies, but not at the be¬ 
ginning of them. To pursue mathematical studies very 
largely may be useful for a professor of philosophy, but 
not for a divine. 

III. Consider whether the subject of your inquiry be 
easy or difficult; whether you have sufficient foundation 
or skill, furniture and advantage for the pursuit of it. 
T t would be madness for a young statuary to attempt 
at first to carve a Venus or a Mercury, and especially 
without proper tools. And it is equal folly for a man 
to pretend to make great improvements in natural phi¬ 
losophy without due experiments. 

IV. Consider whether the subject be any ways useful 
or no before you engage in the study of it: often put 
this question to yourselves, Cm Bono? To what pur¬ 
pose? What end will it attain? Is it for the glory of 
God, for the good of men, for your own advantage, for 
the removal of any natural or moral evil, for the attain¬ 
ment of any natural or moral good? Will the profit be 
equal to the labour? There are many subtle imperti¬ 
nences learned in the schools; many painful trifles, even 
among the mathematical theorems and problems; many 
difficiles nugai, or laborious follies of various kinds, 
which some ingenious men have been engaged in. A 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 173 

due reflection upon these things will call the mind away 
from vain amusements, and save much time. 

V. Consider what tendency it has to make you wiser 
and better, as well as to make you more learned; and 
those questions which tend to wisdom and prudence in 
our conduct among men, as well as piety toward God, 
are doubtless more important, and preferable beyond 
all those inquiries which only improve our knowledge 
in mere speculations. 

VI. If the question appear to be well worth your dili¬ 
gent application, and you are furnished with the neces¬ 
sary requisites to pursue it, then consider whether it be 
dressed up and entangled in more words than is needful, 
and contain or include more complicated ideas than is 
necessary; and if so, endeavour to reduce it to a greater 
simplicity and plainness, which will make the inquiry 
and argument easier and plainer all the way. 

VII. If it be stated in an improper, obscure, or ir¬ 
regular form, it may be meliorated by changing the 
phrase, or transposing the parts of it; but be careful 
always to keep the grand and important point of inquiry 
the same in your new stating the question. Little tricks 
and deceits of sophistry, by sliding in or leaving out 
such words as entirely change the question should be 
abandoned and renounced by all fair disputants and 
honest searchers after truth. 

The stating a question with clearness and justice goes 
a great way many times towards the answering it. The 
greatest pari of true knowledge lies in a distinct percep¬ 
tion of things which are in themselves distinct; and some 
men give more light and knowledge by the bare stating 
of the question with perspicuity and justice, than others 
by talking of it in gross confusion for whole hours to¬ 
gether. To state a question is but to separate and dis¬ 
entangle the parts of it from one another, as well as 
from every thing which does not concern the question, 
and then lay the disentangled parts of ^he question in 
duo order and method: oftentimes, without more ado, 
this fully resolves the doubt, and shows the mind where 
the truth lies, without argument or dispute. 

VIII. If the question relate to an axiom, or first prin- 

15 * 


174 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 


ciple of truth, remember that a long train of consequen¬ 
ces may depend upon it; therefore it should not be sud¬ 
denly admitted or received. 

It is not enough to determine the truth of a proposi¬ 
tion, much less to raise it to the honour of an axiom or 
first principle, to say that it has been believed through 
many ages, that it has been received by many nations, 
that it is almost universally acknowledged,- or nobody 
denies it, that it is established by human laws, or that 
temporal penalties or reproaches will attend the disbe¬ 
lief of it. 

IX. Nor is it enough to forbid any proposition the 
title of axiom, because it has been denied by some per¬ 
sons, and doubted of by others; for some persons have 
been unreasonably credulous, and others have been as 
unreasonably sceptical. Then only should a proposition 
be called an axiom, or a self-evident truth, when, by a 
moderate attention to the subject and predicate, their 
connexion appears in so plain a light, and so clear an 
evidence, as needs no third idea, or middle term, to 
prove them to be connected. 

X. While you are in search after truth in questions 
of a doubtful nature, or such as you have not yet 
thoroughly examined, keep up a just indifference to 
either side of the question, if you would be led honestly 
into the truth: for a desire or inclination leaning to 
either side biasses the judgment strangely: whereas by 
this indifference for every thing but truth, you will be ex¬ 
cited to examine fairly instead of presuming, and your 
assent will be secured from going beyond your evidence. 

XI. For the most part people are born to their opin¬ 
ions, and never question the truth of what their family, 
or their country, or their party profess. They clothe 
their minds as they do their bodies, after the fashion in 
vogue, nor one of a hundred ever examined their prin¬ 
ciples. It is suspected of lukewarmness to suppose ex¬ 
amination necessary; and it will be charged as a ten¬ 
dency to apostasy, if we go about to examine them. 
Persons are applauded for presuming they are in the 
right, and, as Mr. Locke saith, he that considers and 
inquires into the reason of things is counted a foe to 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 175 

orthodoxy, because possibly he may deviate from some 
of the received doctrines. And thus men, without any 
industry or acquisition of their own (lazy and idle as 
they are) inherit local truths, i. e. the truths of that 
place where they live, and are inured to assent without 
evidence. 

This hath a long and unhappy influence; for if a man 
can bring his mind once to be positive and fierce for 
propositions whose evidence he hath never examined, 
and that in matters of the greatest concernment, he 
will naturally follow this short and easy way of judg¬ 
ing and believing in cases of less moment, and build all 
his opinions upon insufficient grounds. 

XII. In determining a question, especially when it is a 
matter of difficulty and importance, do not take up with 
partial examination, but turn your thoughts on all sides, 
to gather in all the light you can towards the solution 
of it. Take time, and use all the helps that are to be 
attained, before you fully determine, except only where 
present necessity of action calls for speedy determination. 

If you would know what may be called a partial ex¬ 
amination, take these instances, viz. 

When you examine an object of sense or inquire into 
some matter of sensation at too great a distance from 
the object, or in an inconvenient situation of it, or under 
any indisposition of the organs, or any disguise whatso¬ 
ever relating to the medium or the organ of the object 
itself, or when you examine it by one sense only, where 
others might be employed; or when you inquire into it 
by sense only, without the use of the understanding, and 
judgment, and reason. 

If it be a question which is to be determined by reason 
and argument, then your examination is partial when 
you turn the question only in one light, and do not turn 
it on all sides: when you look upon it only in its rela¬ 
tions and aspects to one sort of object, and not to 
another; when you consider only the advantages of it, 
and the reasons for it, and neglect to think of the rea¬ 
sons against it, and never survey its inconveniences too; 
when you determine on a sudden, before you have given 
yourself a due time for weighing all circumstances, &c. 


176 OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 

Again, if it be a question of fact, depending upon the 
report or testimony of men, your examination is but 
partial when you inquire only what one man or a few 
say, and avoid the testimony of others; when you only 
ask what those report who were not eye or ear witnesses, 
and neglect those who saw and heard it; when you 
content yourself with mere loose and general talk about 
it, and never enter into particulars; or when there are 
many who deny the fact, and you never concern your¬ 
self about their reasons for denying it, but resolve to be¬ 
lieve only those who affirm it. 

There is yet a further fault in your partial examina¬ 
tion of any question, when you resolve to determine it 
by natural reason only where you might be assisted by 
supernatural revelation; or when you decide the point 
by some word or sentence, or by some part of revelation 
without comparing it with other parts, which might give 
further light, and better help to determine the meaning. 

It is also a culpable partiality, if you examine some 
doubtful or pretended vision or revelation without the 
use of reason, or without the use of that revelation which 
is undoubted and sufficiently proved to be divine. These 
are all instances of imperfect examination: and we should 
never determine a question by one or two lights, where 
we may have the advantage of three or four. 

XIII. Take heed lest some darling notion, some fa¬ 
vourite hypothesis, some beloved doctrine, or some com¬ 
mon but unexamined opinion, be made a test of the 
truth or falsehood of all other propositions about the 
same subject. Dare not build much upon such a notion 
or doctrine till it be very fully examined, accurately ad¬ 
justed, and sufficiently confirmed. Some persons, by 
indulging such a practice, have been led into long ranks 
of errors; they have found themselves involved in a train 
of mistakes, by taking up some petty hypothesis or 
principle, either in philosophy, politics, or religion, upon 
slight and insufficient grounds, and establishing that as 
a test and rule by which to judge of all other things. 

XIV. For the same reason, have a care of suddenly 
determining any one question, on which the determi- 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 177 

% 

nation of any kindred or parallel cases will easily or 
naturally follow. Take heed of receiving any wrong 
turn in your early judgment of things; be watchful as 
far as possible against any false bias, which may be 
given to the understanding, especially in younger years. 
The indulgence of some one silly opinion, or the giving 
credit to one foolish Table, lays the mind open to be im¬ 
posed upon by many. The ancient Romans were taught 
to believe that Romulus and Remus, the founders of 
their state and empire, were exposed in the woods, and 
nursed by a wolf: this story prepared their minds for the 
reception of any tales of the like nature relating to other 
countries. Trojus Pompeius would enforce the belief, 
that one of the ancient kings of Spain was also nursed 
and suckled by a hart, from the fable of Romulus and 
Remus. It was by the same influence they learned to 
give up their hopes and fears to omens and soothsaying, 
when they were once persuaded that the greatness of 
their empire, and the glory of Romulus their founder, 
were predicted by the happy omen of twelve vultures 
appearing to him when he sought where to build the 
city. They readily received all the following legends, 
of prodigies, auguries, and prognostics, for many ages 
together, with which Livy has furnished his huge history. 

So the child who is once taught to believe any one 
occurrence to be a good or evil omen, or any day of the 
month or week to be lucky or unlucky, hath a wide 
inroad made on the soundness of his understanding in 
the following judgments of his life; he lies ever open to 
all the silly impressions and idle tales of nurses, and im¬ 
bibes many a foolish story with greediness, which he 
must unlearn again if ever he become acquainted with 
truth and wisdom. 

XV. Have a care of interesting your warm and re¬ 
ligious zeal in those matters which are not sufficiently 
evident in themselves, or which are not fully and 
thoroughly examined and proved; for this zeal, whether 
right or wrong, when it is once engaged will have a 
powerful influence to establish your own minds in those 
doctrines which are really doubtful, and to stop up all 
the avenues of further light. This will bring upon the 


178 OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 

# 

soul a sort of sacred awe and dread of heresy, with a 
divine concern to maintain whatever opinion you have 
espoused as divine, though perhaps you have espoused it 
without any just evidence, and ought to have renounced 
it as false and pernicious. 

We ought to be zealous for the most important points 
of our religion, and to contend earnestly for the faith 
once delivered to the saints; but we ought not to employ 
this sacred fervour of spirit in the service of any article 
till we have seen it made out with plain and strong con¬ 
viction, that it is a necessary or important point of faith 
or practice, and is either an evident dictate of the light 
of nature, or an assured article of revelation. Zeal 
must not reign over the powers of our understanding, 
but obey them: God is the God of light and truth, a 
God of reason and order, and he never requires mankind 
to use their natural faculties amiss for the support of 
his cause. Even the most mysterious and sublime doc¬ 
trines of revelation are not to be believed without a just 
reason for it; nor should our pious affections be engaged 
in the defence of them till we have plain and convinc¬ 
ing proof that they are certainly revealed, though per¬ 
haps we may never in this world attain to such clear 
and distinct ideas of them as we desire. 

XVI. As a warm zeal ought never to be employed in 
the defence of any revealed truth, till our reason be well 
convinced of the revelation; so neither should wit and 
banter, jest and ridicule, ever be indulged to oppose or 
assault any doctrines of professed revelation, till reason 
has proved they are not really revealed; and even then 
these methods should be used very seldom, and with 
the utmost caution and prudence. Raillery and wit 
were never made to answer our inquiries after truth, 
and to determine a question of rational controversy, 
though they may sometimes be serviceable to expose 
to contempt those inconsistent follies which have been 
first abundantly refuted by argument, they serve indeed 
only to cover nonsense with shame, when reason has 
first proved it to be mere nonsense. 

It is therefore a silly and most unreasonable test which 
some of our deists have introduced to judge of divine 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 


179 


revelation, Viz. to try if it will bear ridicule and laughter. 
They are effectually beaten in all their combats at the 
weapons of men, that is, reason and argument; and it 
would not be unjust (though it is a little uncourtly) to 
say that they would now attack our religion with the 
talents of a vile animal, that is, grin and grimace. 

I cannot think that a jester or a monkey, a droll or a 
puppet, can be proper judges or deciders of controversy. 
That which dresses up all things in disguise is not likely 
to lead us into any just sentiments about them. Plato 
or Socrates, Caesar or Alexander, might have a fool’s 
coat clapped upon any of them, and perhaps, in this dis¬ 
guise', neither the wisdom of the one, nor the majesty 
of the other, would secure them from a sneer; this treat¬ 
ment would never inform us whether they were kings 
or slaves, whether they were fools or philosophers. The 
strongest reasoning, the best sense, and the politest 
thoughts, may be set in a most ridiculous light by this 
grinning faculty: the most obvious axioms of eternal 
truth may be dressed in a very foolish form, and wrapped 
up in artful absurdities by this talent; but they are truth, 
and reason, and good sense still. Euclid, with all his 
demonstrations, might be so covered and overwhelmed 
with banter, that a beginder in the mathematics might 
be tempted to doubt whether his theorems were true or 
no, and to imagine they could never be useful. So 
weaker minds might be easily prejudiced against the 
noblest principles of truth and goodness; and the younger 
part of mankind might be beat off from the belief of 
the most serious, the most rational and important points, 
even of natural religion, by the impudent jests of a pro¬ 
fane Wit. The moral duties of the civil life, as well as 
the articles of Christianity, may be painted over with 
the colours of folly, and exposed upon a stage, so as to 
ruin all social and personal virtue among toe gay and 
thoughtless part of the world. 

XVII. It should be observed also, that these very men 
cry out loudly against the use of all severe railing and 
reproach in debates, and all penalties and persecutions 
of the state, in order to convince the minds and con¬ 
sciences of men, and determine points of truth and error. 


I 


180 OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 

Now I renounce these penal and smarting methods of 
conviction as much as they do, and yet I think still 
these are every whit as wise, as just, and as good for 
this purpose as banter and ridicule. Why should public 
mockery in print, or a merry joke upon a stage, be a 
better test of truth than severe railing sarcasm, and 
public persecutions and penalties? Why should more 
light be derived to the understanding by a song of 
scurrilous mirth, or a witty ballad, than there is by a 
rude cudgel? When a professor of any religion is set 
up to be laughed at, I cannot see how this should help 
us to judge of the truth of his faith any better than if he 
were scourged. The jeers of a theatre, the pillory*, and 
the whippingpost are very near akin. When the per¬ 
son or his opinion is made the jest of the mob, or his 
back the shambles of the executioner, I think there is 
no more conviction in the one than in the other. 

XVIII. Besides, supposing it is but barely possible 
that the great God should reveal his mind and will to 
men by miracle, vision, or inspiration, it is a piece of 
contempt and profane insolence to treat any tolerable 
or rational appearance of such a revelation with jest and 
laughter, in order to find whether it be divine or not. 
And yet, if this be a proper test of revelation, it may be 
properly applied to the true as well as the false, in order 
to distinguish it. Suppose a royal proclamation was 
sent to a distant part of the kingdom, and some of the sub¬ 
jects should doubt whether it came from the king or no; 
is it possible that wit and ridicule should ever decide the 
point? Or would the prince ever think himself treated 
with just honour to have his proclamation canvassed in 
this manner on a public stage, and become the sport of 
buffoons, in order to determine the question, Whether 
it is the word of a king or no? 

Let such sort of writers go on at their dearest peril, 
and sport themselves in theii own deceivings; let them 
at their peril make a jest at the Bible, and treat the 
sacred articles of Christianity with scoff and merriment: 
but then let them lay aside all their pretences to reason 
as well as- religion; and as they expose themselves by 
such writings to the neglect and contempt of men, so 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTICN. 181 

let them prepare to meet the majesty and indignation 
of God without timely repentance. 

XIX. In reading philosophical, moral, or religious 
controversies, never raise your esteem of any opinion 
by the assurance and zeal wherewith the author asserts 
it, nor by the highest praises he bestows upon it; nor, 
on the other hand, let your esteem of an opinion bo 
abated, nor your aversion to it raised by the supercilious 
contempt cast upon it by a warm writer, nor by the 
sovereign airs with which he condemns it. Let the force 
of argument alone influence your assent or dissent. 
Take care that your soul be not warped or biassed on 
one side or the other by any strains of flattering or 
abusive language; for there is no question whatsoever 
but what hath some such sort of defenders and opposers. 
Leave those writers to their own follies who practise 
thus upon the weakness of their readers without argu¬ 
ment; leave them to triumph in their own fancied posses¬ 
sions and victories: it is oftentimes found that their pos¬ 
sessions are but a heap of errors, and their boasted vic¬ 
tories are but overbearing noise and clamour to silence 
the voice of truth. 

In philosophy and religion the bigots of all parties are 
generally the most positive, and deal much in this sort 
of argument. Sometimes these are the weapons of 
pride, for a haughty man supposes all his opinions to be 
infallible, and imagines the contrary sentiments are 
ever ridiculous and not worthy of notice. Sometimes 
these ways of talking are the mere arms of ignorance: 
the men who use them know little of the opposite side 
of the question, and therefore they exult in their own 
vain pretences to knowledge, as though'no man of sense 
could oppose their opinions. They rail at an objection 
against their own sentiments, because they can find no 
other answer to it but railing. And men of learning, 
by their excessive vanity, have been sometimes tempted 
into the same insolent practice as well as the ignorant. 

Yet let it be remembered too, that there are some 
truths so plain and evident, that the opposition to them 
is strange, unaccountable, and almost monstrous: and in 
vindication of such truths a writer of good sense may 
16 


182 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 


sometimes be allowed to use a degree of assurance, and 
pronounce them strongly with an air of confidence, 
while he defends them with reasons of convincing force 

XX. Sometimes a question may be proposed which 
is of so largo and extensive a nature, and refers to such 
a multitude of subjects, as ought not in justice to be de¬ 
termined at once by a single argument or answer: as if 
one should ask me, Are you a professed disciple of the 
Stoics or the Platonists? Do jmu receive an assent to 
the principles of Gassendus, Descartes, or Sir Isaac 
Newton? Have you chosen the hypothesis of Tycho or 
Copernicus? Have you devoted yourself to the senti¬ 
ments of Arminius, or Calvin? Are your notions epis¬ 
copal, presbyterian, or independent, &.C.? I think it 
may be very proper in such cases not to give an answer 
in the gross, but rather to enter into a detail of particu¬ 
lars, and explain one’s own sentiments. Perhaps there is 
no man, nor set of men upon earth, whose sentiments I 
entirely follow. God has given me reason to judge for 
myself; and though I may see sufficient ground to agree 
to the greatest part of the opinions of one person or 
party, yet it does by no means follow that I should re¬ 
ceive them all. Truth does not always go by the lump, 
nor does error tincture and spoil all the articles of belief 
that some one party professes. 

Since there are difficulties attend every scheme of 
human knowledge, it is enough for me in the main to 
incline to that side which has the fewest difficulties; and 
I would endeavour, as far as possible, to correct the 
mistakes or the harsh expressions of one party, by soft¬ 
ening and reconciling methods, by reducing the ex¬ 
tremes, and' by borrowing some of the best principles or 
phrases from another. Cicero w T as one of the greatest 
men of antiquity, and gives us an account of the various 
opinions of philosophers in his age; but he himself was 
of the eclectic sect, and chose out of each of them such 
positions as in his wisest judgment came nearest to the 
truth. 

XXI. When you aro called in the course of life or re¬ 
ligion to judge and determine concerning any question, 
and to affirm or deny "t, take a full survey of the objec- 


I 


OP DETERMINING A QUESTION. 183 

... A 

tions against it, as well as the arguments for it, as far 

as your time and circumstances admit, and see on which 
side the preponderation falls. If either the objections 
against any proposition, or the arguments for the defence 
of it, carry in them most undoubted evidence, and are 
plainly unanswerable, they will and ought to constrain 
the assent, though there may be many seeming proba¬ 
bilities on the other side, which at first sight would 
flatter the judgment to favour it. But where the reasons 
on both sides are very near of equal weight, there sus¬ 
pension or doubt is our duty, unless in cases wherein 
present determination or practice is required, and there 
we must act according to the present appearing prepon¬ 
deration of reasons. 

XXII. In matters of moment and importance, it is 
our duty indeed to seek after certain and conclusive ar¬ 
guments (if they can be found) in order to determine a 
question; but where the matter is of little consequence, 
it is not worth our labour to spend much time in seek¬ 
ing after certainties; it is sufficient here, if probable rea¬ 
sons offer themselves. And even in matters of greater 
importance, especially where daily practice is necessary, 
and where we cannot attain any sufficient or certain 
grounds to determine a question on either side, we must 
then take up with such probable arguments as we can 
arrive at.. But this general rule should be observed, 
viz. to take heed that our assent be no stronger, or rise 
no higher in the degree of it, than the probable argu¬ 
ment will support. 

XXIII. There are many things even in religion, as 
well as in philosophy and civil life, which we believe 
with very different degrees of assent; and this is, or 
should be, always regulated according to the different 
degrees of evidence which we enjoy: and perhaps there 
are a thousand gtadations in our assent to the things we 
believe, because there are thousands of circumstances 
relating to different questions, which increase or dimin¬ 
ish the evidence we have concerning them, and that in 
matters both of reason and revelation. 

I believe there is a God, and that obedience is due to 
him from every reasonable creature; this I am most fully 


184 OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 

assured of, because I have the strongest evidence, sines 
it is the plain dictate both of reason and revelation. 

Again, I believe there is a future resurrection of tin 
dead, because scripture tells us so in the plainest terms* 
though reason says nothing of it. I believe also, that 
the same matter of our bodies which died (in part at 
least) shall arise; but I am not so fully assured of this 
circumstance, because the revelation of it is not quite so 
clear and express. Y^t further, I believe that the good 
men who were acquainted here on earth shall know 
eaclT other in heaven; but my persuasion of it is not 
absolutely certain, because my assent to it arises only 
from circumstantial reasonings of men upon what God 
has told us, and therefore my evidences are not strong 
beyond a possibility of mistake. This direction cannot 
be too often repeated, that our assent ought always to 
keep pace with our evidence; and our belief of any pro¬ 
position should never rise higher than the proof or evi¬ 
dence hve have to support it, nor should our faith run 
faster than right reason can encourage it. 

XXIV. Perhaps it will be objected here, Why then 
does our Saviour, in the histories of the Gospel, so much 
commend a strong faith, and lay out both his miraculous 
benefits and his praises upon some of those poor crea¬ 
tures of little reasoning who professed an assured belief 
of his commission and power to heal them? 

I answer, the God of nature has given every man his 
own reason to be the judge of evidence to himself in 
particular, and to direct his assent in all things about 
which he is called to judge; and even the matters of 
revelation are to be believed by'us because our reason 
pronounces the revelation to be true. Therefore the 
great God will not, or cannot, in any instance, require us 
to assent to any thing without reasonable or sufficient 
evidence; nor to believe any proposition more strongly 
than what our evidence for it will support. We have 
therefore abundant ground to believe, that those persons 
of whom our Saviour requires such strong faith, or whom 
he commends for their strong faith, had as strong and 
certain evidence of his power and commission from the 
credible and incontestable reports they had heard of his 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 


185 


miracles, which were wrought on purpose to give evi¬ 
dence to his commission.* Now in such a case, both 
this strong faith and the open profession of it were very 
worthy of public encouragement and praise from our 
Saviour, because of the great and public opposition 
which the magistrates, and the priests, and the doctors 
of the age made against Jesus the man of Nazareth, 
when he appeared as the Messiah. 

And besides all this it may be reasonably supposed, 
with regard to some of those strong exercises of faith 
which are required and commended, that these believers 
had some further hints of inward evidence and immedi¬ 
ate revelation from God himself; as when St. Peter con¬ 
fesses Christ to be the Son of God, Matt. xvi. 16, 17, 
our blessed Saviour commends him saying, “ Blessed 
art thou, Simon Barjona;” but he adds, “ Flesh and 
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who 
is in heaven.” 

And the same may be said concerning the faith of 
miracles, the exercise whereof was sometimes required 
of the disciples and others, i. e. when by inward and 
divine influences God assured them such miracles should 
be wrought, their obedience to and compliance with 
these divine illuminations was expected and commended. 
Now this supernatural inspiration carried sufficient evi¬ 
dence with it to them, as well as to the ancient prophets, 
though we who never felt it are not so capable to judge 
and distinguish it. 

XXV. What is said before concerning truth or doc¬ 
trines, may be also confirmed concerning duties; the 
reason of both is the same; as the one are truths for 
our speculation, the others are truths for our practice. 
Duties which are expressly required in the plain lan- 

* When our Saviour gently reproves Thomas for his unbelief, 
John, xx. 29, he does it in these words, “ Because thou hast seen me, 
Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they who have not seen, 
and yet*have believed,” i. e. Blessed are they who, though they 
have not been favoured with the evidence of their senses as. thou hast 
been, yet have been convinced by the reasonable and sufficient moral 
evidence of the well grounded report of others, and have believed in 
me upon that evidence. Of this moral evidence Mr. Ditton writes 
exceedingly well in his book of the Resurrection of Christ. 

16* 


186 


OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 


guage of Scripture, or dictated by the most evident 
reasoning upon first principles, ought to bind our con¬ 
sciences more than those which are but dubiously inferred, 
and that only from occasional occurrences, incidents, 
and circumstances: as for instance, I am certain that I 
ought to pray to God; my conscience is bound to this, 
because there are most evident commands for it to be 
found in Scripture, as well as to be derived from reason. 
I believe also, that I may pray to God either by $ 
written form or without one, because neither reason nor 
revelation expressly requires either of these modes of 
prayer at all times, or forbids the other. I cannot, there¬ 
fore, bind my conscience to practise the one so as utterly 
to renounce the other; but I would practice either of 
them as my reason and other circumstances direct me. 

Again, I believe that Christians ought to remember 
the death of Christ by the symbols of bread and wine; 
and I believe there ought to be pastors in a Christian 
church some way ordained or set apart to lead the wor¬ 
ship, and to bless and distribute the elements; but the 
last of these practices is not so expressly directed, pre¬ 
scribed, and required in Scripture as the former; and, 
therefore, I feel my conscience evidently bound to re¬ 
member the death of Christ with some society of Christ¬ 
ians or other, since it is a most plain command, though 
their methods of ordaining a pastor be very different from 
other men, or from my own opinion; or whether the 
person who distributes these elements be only an occa¬ 
sional or a settled administrator; since none of these 
things are plainly determined in Scripture. I must not 
omit or neglect an express command, because some un¬ 
necessary circumstances are dubious. And I trust I 
shall receive approbation from the God of nature, and 
from Jesus my judge at the last day, if I have endea¬ 
voured in this manner to believe and practice every 
thing in proportion to the degree of evidence which God 
has given me about it, or which ho has put me into a 
capacity to seek and obtain in the age and nation where¬ 
in I live. 

Query, Whether the obstinate deists and the fatal¬ 
ists of Great Britain will find sufficient apology from 


OP DETERMINING A QUESTION. 187 

this principle? But I leave them to venture the awful 
experiment. 

XXVI. We may observe these three rules in judging 
of probabilities which are to be determined by reason, 
relating either to things past or things to come. 

1. That which agrees most with the constitution of 
nature carries the greatest probability in it, where no 
other circumstance appears to counterpoise it: as if I let 
loose a greyhound within sight of a hare upon a large 
plain, there is great probability the greyhound will 
seize her; that a thousand sparrows will fly away at the 
sight of a hawk among them. 

2. That which is most conformable to the constant 
observations of men, or to experiment frequently re¬ 
peated, is most likely to be true; as that a winter will 
not pass away in England without some frost and snow; 
that if you deal out great quantities of strong liquor to 
the mob, there will be many drunk; that a large assem¬ 
bly of men will be of different opinions in any doubtful 
point; that a thief will make his escape out of prison if 
the doors of it are unguarded at midnight. 

3. In matters of fact, which are past or present, where 
neither nature, nor observation, nor custom, gives us 
any sufficient information on either side of the question, 
there we may derive a probability from the attestation 
of wise and honest men, by word or writing, or the con¬ 
curring witnesses of multitudes who have seen and 
known what they relate, &c. This testimony in many 
cases will arise to the degree of moral certainty. So 
we believe that the plant tea grows in China; and that 
the emperor of the Turks lives at Constantinople; that 
Julius Caesar conquered France, and that Jesus our Sa¬ 
viour lived and died in Judea; that thousands were con¬ 
verted to the Christian faith in a century after the death 
of Christ; and that the books which contain the Christian 
religion are certain histories and epistles which were 
written above a thousand years ago. There is an infi¬ 
nite variety of such propositions which can admit of no 
reasonable doubt, though they are not matters which 
are directly evident to our own senses or our mere rea¬ 
soning powers. 


188 OF DETERMINING A QUESTION. 

XXVII. When a point hath been well examined, and 
our own judgment settled upon just arguments in our 
manly age, and after a large survey of the merits of 
the cause, it would be a weakness for us always to con¬ 
tinue fluttering in suspense We ought therefore to 
stand firm in such well established principles, and not bo 
tempted to change and alter for the sake of every diffi¬ 
culty, or every occasional objection. We are not to be 
carried about with every flying doctrine, like children 
tossed to and fro, and wavering with the wind. It is a 
good thing to have the heart established with grace, not 
with meats; that is, in the great doctrines of the gospel 
of grace, and in Jesus Christ, who is the same yester¬ 
day, to-day, and for ever; but it is not so necessary in 
the more minute matters of religion, such as meats and 
drink, forms and ceremonies, which are of less impor¬ 
tance, and for which Scripture has not given such ex¬ 
press directions. This is the advice of the great apos¬ 
tle, Eph. 14; Heb. xiii. 8, 9. 

In short, those truths which are the springs of daily 
practice should be settled as soon as we can with the 
exercise of our best powers after the state of manhood: 
but those things wherein we may possibly mistake should 
never be so absolutely and finally established and deter¬ 
mined as though we were infallible. If the papists of 
Great Britain had maintained such a resolute establish¬ 
ment and assurance in the days of King Henry VIII. or 
Queen Elizabeth, there never had been a reformation: 
nor would any heathen have been converted, even un¬ 
der the ministry of St. Paul, if their obstinate settlement 
in their idolatries had kept their eyes shut against all 
further light. Yet this should not hinder us from set¬ 
tling our most important principles of faith and practice, 
where reason shines with its clearest evidence, and the 
word of God plainly determines truth and duty. 

XXVIII. But let us remember also, that though the 
Gospel be an infallible revelation, we are but fallible in 
terpreters when we determine the sense even of some 
important propositions written there; and therefore, 
though we seem to be established in the belief of any 
particular sense of Scripture, and though there may be 


OP INQUIRING INTO, &C. 189 

just calls of Providence to profess and subscribe it, yet 
there is no need that we should resolve or promise, sub¬ 
scribe or swear, never to change our mind, since it is 
possible, in the nature and course of things, we may 
meet with such a solid and substantial objection as 
may give us a quite different view of things from what 
we once imagined, and may lay before us sufficient evi¬ 
dence of the contrary. We may happen to find a fair¬ 
er light cast over the same Scriptures, and see reason to 
alter our sentiments even in some points of moment. 
Sic sentio , sic sentiam , i. e. so I believe, and so I will be¬ 
lieve, is the prison of the soul for lifetime, and a bar 
against all the improvements of the mind. To impose 
such a profession on other men in matters not absolutely 
necessary, and not absolutely certain, is a criminal usur¬ 
pation and tyranny over faith and conscience, and 
which none has power to require but an infallible dictator 


CHAPTER XIX. 

OF INQUIRING INTO CAUSES AND EFFECTS. 

Some effects are found out by their causes, and some 
causes by their effects. Let us consider both these. 

I. When we are inquiring into the cause of any par¬ 
ticular effect or appearance, either in the world of na¬ 
ture, or in the civil or moral concerns of men, we may 
follow this method: 

1. Consider what effects or appearances you have 
known of a kindred nature, and what have been the 
certain and real causes of them; for like effects have ge¬ 
nerally like causes, especially when they are found in the 
same sort of subjects. 

2. Consider what are the several possible causes which 
may produce such an effect, and find out by some cir¬ 
cumstances how many of those possible causes are ex¬ 
cluded in this particular case: Thence proceed by de¬ 
grees to the probable causes, till a more close attention 
and inspection shall exclude some of them also, and 
lead you gradually to the real and certain cause. 



190 


OF INQUIRING INTO 


3. Consider what things preceded such an event or ap¬ 
pearance, which might have any influence upon it; and 
though we cannot certainly determine the cause of any 
thing only from its going before the effect, yet among 
the many forerunners we may probably light upon the 
true cause by further and more particular inquiry. 

4. Consider whether one cause be sufficient to pro¬ 
duce the effect, or whether it does not require a concur¬ 
rence of several causes; and then endeavour as far as 
possible to adjust the degrees of influence that each 
cause might have in producing the effect, and the prop¬ 
er agency and influence of each of them therein. 

So in natural philosophy, if 1 would find what are 
principles or causes of that sensation which we call heat 
when I stand near the fire; here I shall find it is neces¬ 
sary that there be an agency of the particles of fire on 
my flesh, either mediately by themselves, or at least 
by the intermediate air; there must be a particular sort 
of motion and vellication impressed upon my nerves; 
there must be a derivation of that motion to the brain; 
and there must be an attention of my soul to this motion; 
if either of these are wanting, the sensation of heat will 
not be produced. 

So in the moral world, if I inquire into the revolu¬ 
tion of a state or kingdom, perhaps I find it brought 
about by the tyranny and folly of a prince, or by the 
disaffection of his own subjects; and this disaffection 
and opposition may arise either upon the account of 
impositions in religion, or injuries relating to their civil 
rights; or the revolution may be effected by the invasion 
of a foreign army, or by the opposition of some person 
at home or abroad that lays claim to the government, 
&c. or a here who would guard the liberties of the peo¬ 
ple; or by many of these concurring together: then we 
must adjust the influences of each as wisely as we can, 
and not ascribe the whole event to one of them alone. 

II. When we are inquiring into the effects of any 
particular cause or causes, we may follow this method: 

1. Consider diligently the nature of every cause apart, 
and observe what effect every part or property of it will 
tend to produce. 


CAUSES AND EFFECTS. 


191 

2. Consider the causes united together in their seve¬ 
ral natures, and ways of operation: inquire how far the 
powers or properties of one will hinder or promote tho 
effects of the other, and wisely balance the propositions 
of their influence. 

3. Consider what the subject is, in or upon which the 
cause is to operate: for the same cause on different sub¬ 
jects will oftentimes produce different effects; as the sun 
which softens wax will harden clay. 

4. Be frequent and diligent in making all proper ex¬ 
periments, in setting such causes at work, whose effects 
you desire to know, and putting together in an orderly 
manner such things as are most likely to produce some 
useful effects, according to the best survey you can take 
of all the concurring causes and circumstances. 

5. Observe carefully all the events which happen 
either by an occasional concurrence of various causes, 
or by the industrious applications of knowing men: and 
when you see any happy effect certainly produced, 
and often repeated, treasure it up, together with the 
known causes of it, amongst your improvements. 

6. Take a just survey of all the circumstances which 
attend the operation of a.ny cause or causes, whereby 
any special effect is produced: and find out as far as pos¬ 
sible how far any of those circumstances had a tenden¬ 
cy either to obstruct or promote or change those opera¬ 
tions, and consequently how far the effect might be in¬ 
fluenced by them. 

In this manner physicians practise and improve their 
skill. They consider the various known effects of par¬ 
ticular herbs or drugs, they meditate what will be the ef¬ 
fects of their composition, and whether the virtues of 
the one will exalt or diminish the force of the other, or 
correct any of its nocent qualities. Then they observe 
the native constitution, and the present temper or cir¬ 
cumstances of the patient, and what is likely to be the 
effect of such a medicine on such a patient. And in all 
uncommon cases they make wise and cautious experi¬ 
ments, and nicely observe the effects of particular com¬ 
pound medicines on different constitutions and in differ¬ 
ent diseases, and by these treasures of just observations 


192 


OF THE SCIENCES, 

they grow up to an honourable degree of skill in the 
art of healing. So the preacher considers the doctrines 
and reasons, the precepts, the promises and threaten- 
ings of the word of God, and what are the natural ef¬ 
fects of them upon the mind; he considers what is the 
natural tendency of such a virtue, or such a vice; he is 
well apprized that the representation of some of these 
things may convince the understanding, some may ter¬ 
rify the conscience, some may allure the slothful, and 
some encourage the desponding mind; he observes the 
temper of his hearers, or of any particular person that 
converses with him about things sacred, and he judges 
what will be the effects of each representation on such 
persons; he reviews and recollects what have been the 
effects of some special parts and methods of his minis¬ 
try; and by a careful sui*Vey of all these he attains great¬ 
er degrees of skill in his sacred employment. 

Note—In all these cases we must distinguish those . 
causes and effects which are naturally and necessarily 
connected with each other, from those which have only 
an accidenta? or contingent connexion. Even in those 
causes where the effect is but contingent, we may some¬ 
times arrive at a very high degree of probability; yet we 
cannot arrive at such certainty as where the causes ope¬ 
rate by an evident and natural necessity, and the ef¬ 
fects necessarily follow the operation.—See more on 
this subject, Logic, Part n. chap. v. sect. 7. 


CHAPTER XX. 


OF THE SCIENCES, AND THEIR USE IN PARTICULAR PRO¬ 
FESSIONS. 

I. The best way to learn any science is to begin with 
a regular system, or a short and plain scheme of that 
science, well drawn up into a narrow compass, omitting 
the deeper and more abstruse parts of it, and that also 
under the conduct and instruction of some skilfulteach- 


> 



AND THEIR USE. 


193 


er. Systems are necessary to give an entire and com¬ 
prehensive view of the several parts of any science, 
which may have a mutual influence toward the explica¬ 
tion or proof of each other: whereas if a man deals always’ 
and only in essays and discourses on particular parts of 
a science, he will never obtain a distinct and just idea 
of the whole, and may perhaps omit some important 
part of it, after seven years reading of such occasional 
discourses. 

For this reason young students should apply them¬ 
selves to their systems much more than pamphlets. That 
man is never so fit to judge of particular subjects relating 
to any science, who has never taken a survey of the 
whole. 

It is the remark of an ingenious writer, should a bar¬ 
barous Indian, who had never seen a palace or a ship, 
view their separate and disjointed parts, and observe the 
pillars, doors, windows, cornices, and turrets of the one, 
or the prow and stern, the ribs and masts, the ropes and 
shrouds, the sails and tackle of the other, he would be 
able to form but a very lame and dark idea of either of 
those excellent and useful inventions. In like manner, 
those who contemplate only the fragments or pieces 
broken off from any science, dispersed in short uncon¬ 
nected discourses, and do not discern their relation to 
each other, and how they may be adapted, and by their 
union procure the delightful symmetry of a regular 
scheme, can never survey an entire body of truth, but 
must always view it as deformed and dismembered; 
while their ideas, which must be ever indistinct and of¬ 
ten repugnant, will lie in the brain unsorted, and thrown 
together without order or coherence: such is the knowl¬ 
edge of those men who live upon the scraps of the sci¬ 
ences. 

A youth of genius and lively imagination, of an ac¬ 
tive and forward spirit, may form within himself some 
alluring scenes and pleasing schemes in the beginning 
of a science, which are utterly inconsistent with some 
of the necessary and substantial parts of it which ap¬ 
pear in the middle or the end. And if he never read 
and pass through the whole, he takes up and is satisfied 

17 


194 


OF THE SCIENCES, 


with his own hasty pleasing schemes, and treasures 
these errors up amongst his solid acquisitions; where¬ 
as his own labour and study farther pursued would have 
shown him his early mistakes, and cured him of his 
self-flattering delusions. 

Hence it comes to pass that we have so many half¬ 
scholars nowadays, and there is so much confusion and 
inconsistency in the notions and opinions of some per¬ 
sons, because they devote their hours of study entirely 
to short essays and pamphlets, and cast contempt upon 
systems under a pretence of greater politeness: whereas 
the true reason of this contempt of systematical learn¬ 
ing is mere laziness and want of judgment. 

II. After we are grown well acquainted with a short 
system or compendium of a science, which is written in 
the plainest and most simple manner, it is then proper 
to read a large regular treatise on that subject, if we 
design a complete knowledge and cultivation of it: and 
either while we are reading this larger system, or after 
we have done it, then occasional discourses and essays 
upon the particular subjects and parts of that science 
may be read with the greatest profit: for in these essays 
we may often find very considerable corrections and im¬ 
provements of what these compends, or even the larger 
systems may have taught us, mingled with some mis¬ 
takes. 

And these corrections or improvements should be as 
remarks adjoined by way of note or commentary in 
their proper places, and superadded to the regular trea¬ 
tise we have read. Then a studious and judicious re- * 
view of the whole will give us a tolerable acquaintance 
with that science. 

III. It is a great happiness to have such a tutor, or 
such friends and companions at hand, who are able to 
inform us what are the best books written on any science, 
or any special part of it. For want of this advantage 
many a man has wasted his time in reading over per¬ 
haps some > iole volumes, and learnt little more by it 
than to know that those volumes were not .worth his 
reading. 

IV. As for the languages, thev are certainly best 


AND THEIR USE. 


195 


learned in the younger years of life. The mem Dry is 
then most empty and unfurnished, and ready to receive 
new ideas continually. We find that children, in two 
years time after they are born, learn to speak their na¬ 
tive tongue. 

V. The mere abstracted sciences, which depend more 
upon the understanding and judgment, and which deal 
much in abstracted ideas, should not lie imposed upon 
children too soon; such are logic, metaphysics, ethics, 
politics, or the depths and difficulties of grammar and 
criticism. Yet it must be confessed the first rudiments 
of grammar are necessary, or • at least very convenient 
to be known when a youth learns a new language; and 
some general easy principles and rules of morality and 
divinity are needful in order to teach a child his duty to 
God and man; but to enter far into abstracted reasonings 
on these subjects is beyond the capacity of children. 

VI. There are several of the sciences that will more , 
agreeably employ our younger years, and the general 
parts of them may be easily taken in by boys. The first 
principles and easier practices of arithmetic, geometry, 
plain trigonometry, measuring heights, depths, lengths, 
distances, &c. the rudiments of geometry and astronomy, 
together with something of mechanics, may be easily 
conveyed into the minds ~f acute young persons, from 
nine or ten years old and upward. These studies may 
be entertaining and useful to young ladies as well as to 
gentlemen, and to all those who are bred up to the 
learned professions. The fair sex may intermingle those 
with the operations of the needle and the knowledge of 
domestic life. Boys may be taught to join them with 
their rudiments of grammar, and their labour in the lan¬ 
guages. And even those who never learft any language 
but their mother-tongue, may be taught these sciences 
with lasting benefit in early days. 

That this may be done with ease and advantage, take 
these three reasons: 

1. Because they depend so much upon schemes and 
numbers, images, lines, and fingers, and sensible things, 
that the imagination or fancy will greatly assist the 


196 OP THE SCIENCES, 

understanding, and render the knowledge of them much 
more easy. 

2. These studies are so pleasant that they will make 
the dry labour of learning words, phrases, and languages 
more tolerable to boys in a Latin school by this most 
agreeable mixture. The employment of youth in these 
studies will tempt them to neglect many of the foolish 
plays of childhood, and they will find sweeter entertain¬ 
ment for themselves and their leisure hours by a culti¬ 
vation of these pretty pieces of alluring knowledge. 

3. The knowledge of these parts of science are both 
easy and worthy to be retained in the memory by all 
children when they come to manly years, for they are 
useful through all the parts of human life: they tend to 
enlarge the understanding early, and to give a various 
acquaintance with useful subjects betimes. And surely 
it is best, as far as possible, to train up children in the 
knowledge of those things which they should never for¬ 
get rather than to let them waste years of life in trifles, 
or in hard words which are not worth remembering. 

And here by the way I cannot but wonder that any 
author in our age should have attempted to teach any 
of the exploded physics of Descartes, or the nobler in¬ 
ventions of Sir Isaac Newton in his hypothesis of the 
heavenly bodies and their motions, in his doctrine of 
light and colours, and other parts of his physiology, or 
to instruct children in the knowledge of the theory of 
the heavens, earth and planets, without any figures or 
diagrams. Is it possible to give a boy or a young lady 
the clear, distinct, and proper apprehensions of these 
things, without lines and figures to describe them? Does 
not tneir understanding want the aid of fancy and im¬ 
ages to convey^tronger and juster ideas of them to the 
inmost souP Or do they imagine that youth can pene¬ 
trate into all these beauties and artifices of nature, with¬ 
out those helps which persons of maturer age find neces¬ 
sary for that purpose? I would not willingly name the 
books, because some of the writers are said to be gentle¬ 
men of excellent acquirements. 

Vll. After we have first learnt and gone through any 
of those arts and sciences which are to be explained by 


AND THEIR USE. 


197 


diagrams, figures, and schemes, sucii as geometry, ge¬ 
ography, astronomy, optics, mechanics, &c. we may best 
preserve them in memory, by having those schemes and 
figures in large sheets of paper hanging always before 
the eye in closets, parlours, halls, chambers, entries, 
staircases, &c. Thus the learned images will be per¬ 
petually impressed upon the brain, and will keep the 
learning that depends upon them alive and fresh in the 
mind through the growing years of life: the mere dia¬ 
grams and figures will ever recall to our thoughts those 
theorems, problems, and corollaries, which have been 
demonstrated by them. 

It is incredible how much geography may be learnt 
this way by the two terrestrial hemispheres, and by par¬ 
ticular maps and charts of the coast and countries of the 
earth happily disposed round about us. Thus we may 
learn also the constellations, by just projections of the 
celestial sphere, hung up in the same manner. And I 
must confess, for the bulk of learners of astronomy, I 
like that projection of the stars best which includes in 
it all the stars of our horizon, and therefore it reaches to 
the thirty-eighth and half degree of southern latitude, 
though its centre is the north pole. This gives us a 
better view of the heavenly bodies, as they appear every 
night to us, and it may be made use of with ^little in¬ 
struction, and with ease, to serve for a nocturnal, and 
show the true hour of the night. 

But remember, if there be any colouring upon these 
maps or projections, it should be laid on so thin as not 
to obscure or conceal any part of the lines, figures, or 
letters; whereas most times they are daubed so thick 
with gay and glaring colours, and hung up so high 
above the reach of the eye that should survey and read 
them as though their only design were to make a gaudy 
show upon the wall, and they hung there merely to 
cover the naked plaster or wainscot. 

Those sciences which may be drawn out into tables 
may be also thus hung up and disposed in proper places, 
such as brief abstracts of history, chronology, &c,; and 
indeed the schemes of any of the arts or sciences may 
be analyzed in a sort of skeleton, and represented upon 

17 * 


198 


OF THE SCIENCES, 


tables, with various dependencies and connexions ot 
their several parts and subjects that belong to them. 
Mr. Solomon Lowe has happily thrown the grammar 
of several languages into such tables; and a frequent re¬ 
view of these abstracts and epitomes would tend much 
to imprint them on the brain, when they have been once 
well learned; this would keep those learned traces always 
open, and assist the weakness of a labouring memory. 
In this manner may a scheme of the Scripture history 
be drawn outj and perpetuate those ideas in the mind 
with which our daily reading furnishes us. 

VIII. Every man who pretends to the character of 
a scholar should attain some general and superficial 
ideas of most or all the sciences: for there is a certain 
connexion among the various parts of human knowledge, 
so that some notions borrowed from any one science may 
assist our acquaintance with any other, either by wa) T 
of explication, illustration, or proof: though there are some 
sciences conjoined by a much nearer affinity than others. 

IX. Let those parts of every science be chiefly studied 
at first, and reviewed afterwards, which have a more 
direct tendency to assist our proper profession, as men, 
or our general profession, as Christians, always observ¬ 
ing what we have ourselves found most necessary and 
useful to us in the course of our lives. Age and ex¬ 
perience will teach us to judge which of the sciences, 
and which parts of them, have been of greatest use and 
are most valuable; but in younger years of life we are 
not sufficient judges of this matter, and therefore should 
seek advice from others who are elder. 

X. There are three learned professions among us, viz. 
divinity, law, and medicine. Though every man who 
pretends to be a scholar or a gentleman should so far 
acquaint himself with a superficial scheme of all the 
sciences, as not to stand amazed like a mere stranger at 
the mention of the common subjects that belong to them; 
yet there is no necessity for every man of learning to 
enter into their difficulties and deep recesses, nor to 
climb the heights to which" some others have arrived. 
The knowledge of them in a proper measure may be 
happily useful to every profession, not onty because all 


AND THEIR USE. 


199 


arts and sciences have a sort of communion and connex¬ 
ion with each other, but it is an angelic pleasure to grow 
in knowledge, it is a matter of honour and esteem, and 
renders a man more agreeable and acceptable in every 
company. 

But let us survey several of them more particularly, 
with regard to the learned professions; and first, of the 
mathematics. 

XI. Though I have so often commended mathemati¬ 
cal studies, and particularly the speculations of arithme¬ 
tic and geometry, as a means to fix a wavering mind, 
to beget a habit of attention, and to improve the faculty 
of reason; yet I would by no means be understood to 
recommend to all a pursuit of these sciences, to those 
extensive lengths to which the moderns have advanced 
them. This is neither necessary nor proper for any 
students, but those few who shall make those studies 
their chief profession and business of life, or those gen¬ 
tlemen whose capacities and turn of mind are suited to 
these studies, artd have all manner of advantage to im- 
prove in them. 

The general principles of arithmetic, algebra, geome¬ 
try, and trigonometry, of geography, of modern as¬ 
tronomy, mechanics, statics, and optics, have their 
valuable and excellent uses, riot only for the exercise and 
improvement of the faculties of the mind, but the sub¬ 
jects themselves are very well worth our knowledge in 
a moderate degree, and are often made of admirable 
service in human life. So much of these subjects as 
Dr. Wells has given us in his three volumes, entitled The 
Young Gentleman’s Mathematics, is richly sufficient for 
the greatest part of scholars or gentlemen; though per¬ 
haps there may be some single treatises, at least on some 
of these subjects, which may be better written and more 
useful to be perused than those of that learned author. 

But a penetration into the abstruse difficulties and 
depths of modern algebra and fluxions, the various me¬ 
thods of quadratures, the mensuration of all manner of 
curves, and their mutual transformation, and twenty 
other tilings that some modem mathematicians deal in, 
are not worth the labour of those who design either of 


200 


OF THE SCIENCES, 


the three learned professions, divinity, law, (r physic, as 
the business of life. This is the sentence of a considera¬ 
ble man, viz. Dr. George Cheyne, who was a very good 
proficient and writer on these subjects: he affirms that 
they are but„barren and airy studies, for a man entirely 
to live upon, and that for a man to indulge and riot in 
these exquisitely bewitching contemplations is only pro¬ 
per for public professors, or for gentlemen of estates, 
who have a strong propensity this way, and a genius fit 
to cultivate them. 

But, says he, to own a great but grievous truth, though 
they may quicken and sharpen the invention; strengthen 
and extend the imagination, improve and refine the 
reasoning faculty, and are of use both in the necessary 
and the luxurious refinement of mechanical arts; yet 
having no tendency to rectify the will, to sweeten the 
temper, or mend the heart, they often leave a stiffness, 
a positiveness, a sufficiency on weak minds,' which is 
much more pernicious to society, and to the interests of 
the great end of our being, than all their advantages can 
recompense. He adds further, concerning the launch¬ 
ing into the depths of these studies, that they are apt 
to beget a secret and refined pride, an overweening 
and overbearing vanity, the most opposite temper to the 
true spirit of the Gospel. This tempts them to presume 
on a kind of omniscience in respect to their fellow crea¬ 
tures, who have not risen to their elevation; nor are 
they fit to be trusted in the hands of any but those who 
have acquired an humble heart, a lowly spirit, and a 
sober and teachable temper. See Dr. Cheyne’s preface 
to his Essay on Health and Long Life. 

XII. Some of the practical parts of geometry, as¬ 
tronomy, dialling, optics, statics, mechanics, &c. may 
be agreeable entertainments and amusements to students 
in every profession, at leisure hours, if they enjoy such 
circumstances of life as to furnish them witli conveni¬ 
ences for this sort of improvement: but let them take 
great care lest they entrench upon more necessary em¬ 
ployments, and so fall under the charge and censure of 
wasted time. 

Yet I cannot help making this observation, that where 


AND THEIR USE. 


201 


students, or indeed any young gentlemen have, in their 
early years, made themselves masters of a variety of ele¬ 
gant problems in the mathematical circle of knowledge, 
and gained the most easy, neat, and entertaining ex¬ 
periments in natural philosophy, with some short and 
agreeable speculations or practices, in any other of the 
arts and sciences, they have hereby laid a foundation for 
the esteem and love of mankind among those with whom 
they converse, in higher or lower ranks of life; they have 
been often guarded by this means from the temptation 
of innocent pleasures, and have secured both their own 
hours and the hours of their companions from running 
to waste in sauntering and trifles, and from a thousand 
impertinences in silly dialogues. Gaming and drinking, 
and many criminal and foolish scenes of talk’and action, 
have been prevented by these innocent and improving 
elegancies of knowledge. 

XIII. History is a necessary study in the supreme 
place for gentlemen who deal in politics. The govern¬ 
ment of nations, and distressful and desolating events 
which have in all ages attended the mistakes of politicians, 
should be ever present on their minds, to warn them to 
avoid the like conduct. Geography and chronology, 
which precisely inform us of the place or time where 
such transactions or events happened, are the eyes of 
history, and of absolute necessity in some measure to 
attend it. 

But history, as far as relates to the affairs of the Bible, 
is as necessary to divines as to gentlemen of any profes¬ 
sion. It helps us to reconcile many difficulties in Scrip¬ 
ture, and demonstrates a divine Providence. Dr. Pri- 
deaux’s Connexions of the Old and New Testament is 
an excellent treatise of this kind. 

XIV. Among the smaller histories, biography, or the 
memoirs of the lives of great and good men, has a high rank 
in my esteem, as worthy of the perusal of every person 
who devotes himself to the study of divinity. Therein we 
frequently find our holy religion reduced to practice, 
and many parts of Christianity shining with a trancen- 
dent and exemplary light. We learn there how deeply 
sensible great and good men have been of the ruins of 


202 


OF THE SCIENCES, 

human nature by the first apostasy from God, and how 
they have toiled and laboured, and turned themselves 
on all sides, to seek a recovery in vain, .till they have 
found the Gospel of Christ an all-sufficient relief. We 
are there furnished with effectual and unanswerable evi¬ 
dences that the religion of Jesus, with all its self-denials, 
virtues, and devotions, is a very practicable thing, since 
it has been carried to such a degree of honour by some 
wise and holy men. We have been there assured that 
the pleasures and satisfactions of the Christian life, in 
its present practice and future hopes, are not mere rap¬ 
tures of fancy and enthusiasm, when some of the strict¬ 
est professors of reason have added the sanction of their 
testimony. 

In short, the lives or memoirs of persons of piety, well 
written, have been of infinite and unspeakable advantage 
to the disciples and professors of Christianity, and have 
given us admirable instances and rules how to resist 
every temptation of a soothing or frowning world, how to 
practice important and difficult duties, how to love God 
above all, and to love our neighbour as ourselves, to live 
by the faith of the Son of God, and to die in the same faith, 
in sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life. 

XV. Remember that logic and ontology or metaphys¬ 
ics, are necessary sciences, though they have been greatly 
abused by scholastic writers, who have professed to teach 
them in former ages. Not only all students, whether 
they design the profession of theology, law, or physic, 
but all gentlemen should at least acquire a superficial 
knowledge of them. The introduction of so many sub¬ 
tleties, nice distinctions, and insignificant terms, without 
clear ideas, has brought a great part of the logic and 
metaphysics of the schools into just contempt. Their 
logic has appeared the mere art of wrangling, and their 
metaphysics the skill of splitting a hair, of distinguish¬ 
ing without a difference, and of putting long hard names 
upon common things, and sometimes upon a confused 
jumble of things which have no clear ideas belonging to 
them. 

It is certain that an unknown heap of trifles and im¬ 
pertinences have been intermingled with these useful 


AND THEIR USE. 


20S 


parts of learning, upon which account many persons in 
this polite age have made it a part of their breeding to 
throw a jest upon them; and to rally them well has been * 
esteemed a more valuable talent than to understand 
them. 

But this is running into wide extremes, nor ought 
these parts of science to be abandoned by the wise, be¬ 
cause some writers of former ages have played the fool 
with them. True logic teaches us to use our reason well, 
and brings a light into the understanding: true meta¬ 
physics or ontology casts a light upon all the objects of 
thought and meditation, by ranging every being, with 
all the absolute and relative perfections and properties, 
modes and attendants of it, in proper rank and classes, 
and thereby it discovers the various relations of things 
to each other, and what are their general or special dif¬ 
ferences from eacli other, wherein a great part of human 
knowledge consists. And by this means it greatly con¬ 
duces to instruct us in method, or the disposition of 
every thing into its proper rank and class cf beings, 
attributes, or action. 

XVI. If I were to say any thing of natural philoso¬ 
phy, I would venture to lay down my sentiments thus: 

I think it must needs be very useful to a divine to 
understand something of natural science. The mere 
natural history of birds, beasts, and fishes, of insects, 
trees, and plants, as well as of meteors, such as clouds, 
thunder, lightnings, snow, hail, frost, &c. in all their 
common or uncommon appearances, may be of consid¬ 
erable use to one who studies divinity, to give him wi¬ 
der and more delightful views of the works of God, 
and to furnish him with lively and happy images and 
metaphors drawn from the large volume of nature, to 
display and represent the things of God and religion in 
the most beautiful and affecting colours. 

And if the mere history of these things be useful for 
this purpose, surely it will be of further advantage to be P 
led into the reasons, causes, and effects of these natural 
objects and appearances, and to know the established 
laws of nature, matter, and motion, whereby the great 


204 


OF TIIE SCIENCES 


God carries on his extensive works of providence from 
the creation to this day. 

I confess the old Aristotelian scheme of this science 
will teach us very little that is worth knowing about 
these matters; but the later writers, who have explained 
nature and its operations in a more sensible and geo¬ 
metrical manner, are well worth the moderate study of 
a divine; especially those who have followed the princi¬ 
ples of that wonder of our age and nation, Sir Isaac 
Newton. There is much pleasure and entertainment 
as well as real profit to be derived from those admirable 
improvements which have been advanced in natural 
philosophy in late years, by the assistance of mathe¬ 
matical learning, as well as from the multitude of ex¬ 
periments which have been made and are still making 
in natural subjects. 

XVII. This is a science which indied eminently be¬ 
longs to the physician: he ought to know all the parts 
of human nature, what are the sound and healthy func¬ 
tions of an animal body, and what are the distempers 
and dangers which attend it; he should also be furnish¬ 
ed with a large knowledge of plants and animals, and 
every thing which makes up the materia medica, or the 
ingredients of which medicines are made; and many 
other things in natural philosophy are subservient to his 
profession, as well as the kindred art of surgery. 

XVIII. Questions about the powers and operations 
of nature may also sometimes come into the lawyer’s 
cognizance, especially such as relate to assaults, wounds, 
murders, &c. I remember I have read a trial of a man 
for murder by drowning, wherein the judge on the 
bench heard several arguments concerning the lungs 
being filled or not filled with water, by inspiration or 
expiration, &c.; to all which he professed himself so 
much a stranger, as did not do him any great honour 
in public. 

XIX. But I think no divine, who can obtain it, should 
be utterly destitute of this knowledge. By the assistance 
of this study he will be better able to survey the various 
monuments of creating wisdom in the heavens, the 
earth, the seas, with wonder and worship: and by the 


AND THEIR USE. 


205 


use oF a moderate skill in this science, be may ijommu- 
nicate so much of the astonishing works of God in the 
formation and government of this visible world, and so 
far instruct many of his hearers, as may assist the trans¬ 
fusion of the same ideas into their minds, and raise 
them to the same delightful exercises of devotion. O 
Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou 
made them all! They are sought out by all that have 
pleasure in them. 

Besides, it is worthy of the notice of every student 
in theology, that he ought to have some acquaintance 
with the principles of nature, that he may judge a little 
how far they will go; so that he may not be imposed 
upon to take every strange appearance in nature for a 
miracle, that he may reason the clearer upon the sub¬ 
ject, that he may better confirm the miracles of Moses 
and of Christ, nor yield up his faith to any pretences of 
prodigy and wonder, which are either the occasional and 
uncommon operations of the elements, or the crafty 
sleights of men well skilled in philosophy and mechan¬ 
ical operations to delude the simple. 

XX. The knowledge also of animal nature, and of 
the rational soul of man, and the mutual influence of 
v these two ingredients of our composition upon each 
other, is worthy the study of a divine. It is of great 
importance to persons of this character and office to 
judge how far the animal powers have influence upon 
such and such particular appearances and practices of 
mankind; how far the appetites or passions of human 
nature are owing to the flesh and blood, or to the mind; 
how far they may be moderated, and how far they ought 
to be subdued; and what are the happiest methods of 
obtaining these ends. By this science also we may be 
better informed how far these passions or appetites are 
lawful, and how far they are criminal, by considering 
how far they are subject to the power of the will, and 
how far they may be changed and corrected by our 
watchfulness, care, and diligence. 

It comes also very properly under the cognizance of 
this profession to be able in some measure to determine 
questions which may arise relating to real inspiration oi 
18 


206 


OF THE SCIENCES, 


prophecy, to wild enthusiasm, to fits of a convulsive 
kind, to melancholy or frenzy, &c. and what directions 
are proper to be given concerning any appearances of 
this nature. 

XXI. Next to the knowledge of natural things, and 
acquaintance with the human nature and constitution, 
which is made up of soul and body, I think that natu¬ 
ral religion properly takes its place. This consists of 
these two parts, viz. 1. The speculative or contempla¬ 
tive, which is the knowledge of God in his various per¬ 
fections and in his relations to his rational creatures, so 
far as may be known by the light <*f nature, which hereto¬ 
fore used to be called the second part of metaphysics, it 
includes also, 2. That which is practical or active, that is, 
the knowledge of the several duties which arise from our 
relation to God, and our relation to our fellow creatures, 
and our proper conduct and government of ourselves; this 
has been used to be called ethics, or moral philosophy. 

XXII. The knowledge of these things is proper for 
all men of learning; not only because it teaches them 
to obtain juster views of the several parts of revealed 
religion and of Christianity, which are built upon them, 
but because every branch of natural religion, and of 
moral duty, is contained and necessarily implied in all 
the revealed religions that ever God prescribed to the 
world. We may well suspect that religion does not 
come from God which renounces any part of natural 
duty. 

Whether mankind live under the dispensation of 
the patriarchs, or of Moses, or the prophets, or of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, still we are bound to know the one 
true God, and to practise all that adoration and rever¬ 
ence, all that love to him, that faith in his perfections, 
with that obedience and submission to his will, which 
natural religion requires. We are still bound to exer¬ 
cise that justice, truth, and goodness towards our neigh¬ 
bours, that restraint and moderation of our own appe¬ 
tites and passions, and that regular behaviour towards 
ourselves and all our fellow creatures around us, which 
moral philosophy teaches. There is no sort of revealed 
religion that will dispense with these natural obligations: 


AND THEIR USE. 


207 


and a happy acquaintance with the several appetites, 
inclinations, and passions of human nature, and the 
best methods to rule and restrain, to direct and govern 
them, are our constant business, and ought to be our 
everlasting study. 

Yet I would lay down this caution, viz. That since 
students are instructed in the knowledge of the true God 
in their lectures on Christianity, and since among the 
Christian duties they are also taught all the moral dictates 
of the light of nature, or a complete scheme of ethics, 
there is no absolute necessity of learning these two parts 
of natural religion, as distinct sciences, separate and by 
themselves; but still it is of great importance for a tutor, 
while he is reading to his pupils these parts of the 
Christian religion, to give them notice how far the light 
of nature or mere reason will instruct us in these doc¬ 
trines and duties, and how far we are obliged to divine 
relation, and Scripture, for clearing up and establishing 
the firm foundations of the one, for affording us superior 
motives and powers to practice the other, for raising 
them to more exalted degrees, and building so glorious 
a superstructure upon them. 

XXIII. The study of natural religion, viz. the know¬ 
ledge of God and the rules of virtue and piety, as far as 
they are discovered by the light of nature, is needful to 
prove the truth of divine revelation or scripture, in the 
most effectual mariner: but after the divine authority of 
Scripture is established, that will be a very sufficient 
spring from whence the bulk of mankind may derive 
their knowledge of divinity, or the Christian religion, 
in order to their own present faith and practice, and 
their future and eternal happiness. In this sense theology 
is a science necessary for every one that hopes for the 
favour of God and the felicity of another world; and it 
is of infinitely more importance than any of the arts and 
sciences which belong to any of the learned professions 
here on earth. 

XXIV. Perhaps it will be thought necessary I should 
say something concerning the study of the civil law, or 
the law of nature and nations. 

If we would speak with-great justness and propriety, 


208 


OF THE SCIENCES, 


the civil law signifies the peculiar law of each state, 
country, or city; but what we nowadays usually mean 
by the civil law, is a body of laws composed out of the 
best of the Roman and Grecian laws, and which was in 
the main received and observed through all the Roman 
dominions for above twelve hundred years. The Romans 
took the first grounds of this law from what they called 
the twelve tables, which were the abridgments of the laws 
of Solon at Athens, and of other cities in G reece, famous 
for knowledge and wisdom; to which they added their 
own ancient customs of the city of Rome, and the laws 
which were made there. These written laws were sub¬ 
ject to various interruptions, whence controversies daily 
arising, they were determined by the judgment of the 
learned: and these determinations were what they first 
called Jus Civile. All this by degrees grew to a vast 
number of volumes; and therefore the emperor Justinian 
commanded his chancellor Tribonian to reduce them to 
a perfect body, and this is called the body of the civil law. 

XXV. But that which is of most importance for all 
learned men to be acquainted with, is the law of nature, 
or the knovyledge of right and wrong among mankind, 
whether it be transacted between single persons or com¬ 
munities, so far as common reason and the light of na¬ 
ture dictates and directs. This is what Puffendorff calls 
the law of nature and nations, as will appear if you con¬ 
sult sect. 3, chap. iii. of that most valuable folio he has 
written on the subject; which is well worthy the study 
of every man of learning, particularly lawyers and di¬ 
vines, together \yith other treatises on the same theme. 

If any question proposed relate to right and property, 
and justice between man and man, in any polite and 
civilized country, though it must be adjudged chiefly ac¬ 
cording to the particular statutes and laws of that 
country, yet the knowledge of the law of nature will 
very considerably assist the lawyer and the civil judge 
in the determination thereof. And this knowledge will 
be of great use to divines, not only in deciding of cases 
of conscience among men, and answering any difficult 
inquiries which may be proposed to them on this sub¬ 
ject, but it will greatly assist them also in their studies 


AND THEIR USE. 


209 

relating to the law of God, and the performance or vio¬ 
lation thereof, the nature of duty and sin, rewards and 
punishments. 

XXVI. I have spoken something of the languages 
before; but let me here resume the subject, and put in a 
few thoughts about those studies which are wont to be 
called philological; such as history, languages, grammar, 
rhetoric, poesy, and criticism. 

An acquaintance with some of the learned languages 
at least is necessary for all the three learned professions. 

XXVII. The lawyers, who have the least need of 
foreign tongues, ought to understand Latin. During 
many ages past, very important matters in the law were 
always written and managed in that language by the 
lawyers, as prescriptions in medicine by the physicians, 
and citations of the Scriptures in divinity were always 
made in Latin by the divines. Prayers also were ordained 
to be said publicly and privately in the Roman tongue: 
paternosters and ave-marias were half the devotions of 
those ages. These cruel impositions upon the people 
would not suffer them to read in their own mother 
tongue what was done, either to or for their own souls, 
their bodies, or their estates. I am ready to suspect this 
was all owing to the craft and policy of the priesthood 
and church of Rome, which endeavoured to aggrandize 
themselves, and exalt their own profession into a sove¬ 
reign tyranny, and to make mere slaves of the laity 
among mankind, by keeping them in utter ignorance, 
darkness, and dependence. And they were willing to 
compound the matter with the physicians and the law¬ 
yers, and allow them a small share in this tyranny over 
the populace, to maintain their own supreme dominion 
over all. 

But we thank God the world is grown something 
wiser; and of late years the British parliament has been 
pleased to give relief from that bondage in matters re¬ 
lating to the law also, as in the age of reformation we 
were delivered from saying our prayers in Latin, from 
being bound to read the word of God in a tongue un¬ 
known to the people, and from living in everlasting 


18 * 


210 


OF THE SCIENCES 


subjection to the clergy in matters of this life and the 
life to come. 

But to return, there are still so many forms of pro¬ 
ceeding in judicature, and things called by Latin names 
in the profession of the law, and so many barbarous words 
with Latin terminations, that it is necessary lawyers 
should understand this language. Some acquaintance 
also with the old French tongue is needful for the same 
persons and professions, since the tenures of Lyttleton, 
which are a sort of Bible to the gentlemen of the long 
robe, were written in that language: and this tongue 
has been interwoven in some forms of the English law, 
from the days of William the Conqueror, who came 
from Normandy in France. 

XXVIII. Physicians should be skilled in the Greek 
as well as in the Latin, because their great master Hip¬ 
pocrates wrote in that tongue, and his writings are still 
of good value and use. A multitude of the names, 
both of the parts of the body, of diseases, and of medi¬ 
cines are derived from the Greek language: and there 
are many excellent books of physic, both in the theo¬ 
retical and practical parts of it which are delivered to 
the world in the Roman tongue, and of which that pro¬ 
fession should not be ignorant. 

XXIX. Such as intend the study of theology should 
be well acquainted also with the Latin, because it has 
been for many hundred years the language of the schools 
of learning: their disputations are generally limited to 
that language, and many and excellent books of divinity 
must be entirely concealed front the students, unless 
they are acquainted with Latin authors. 

But those that design the sacred profession of theolo¬ 
gy should make it their labour of chief importance to 
be very conversant with their Bibles, both in the Old 
and New Testament: and this requires some knowledge 
of those original languages, Greek and Hebrew, in 
which the Scriptures were written. All that will pursue 
these studies with honour should be able to read the Old 
Testament tolerably in the Hebrew tongue; at least they 
should be so far acquainted with it as to find out the 
sense of a text by the help of a dictionary. But scarce 


AND THEIR USE. 


211 


any man should be thought worthy of the name of a 
solid divine, or a skilful teacher of the Gospel, in these 
days of light and liberty, unless he has pretty good 
knowledge of the Greek, since all the important points 
of the Christian religion are derived from the New Tes- 
. tament, which was first written in that language. 

XXX. As for the Syriac and Arabic tongues, if one 
divine in thirty, or in three hundred, travel far into these 
regions, it is enough. A few learned men skilled in 
these languages will make sufficient remarks upon them 
for the service of the whole Christian world; which re¬ 
marks may sometimes happen to be of use to those di- 
• vines who are unacquainted with them in reading the 
Bible. But the advantage of these tongues is not of so 
great importance as it has been too often represented. 
My reader will agree with me, when he considers that 
the chief uses of them are these: 

The Arabic is a language which has some kindred 
and affinity to the Hebrew, and perhaps we may now 
and then guess at the sense of some uncommon and 
doubtful Hebrew word, which is found but once or twice 
in the Bible, by its supposed affinity to the Arabic: but 
whatever conjectures may be made by some kindred of 
a Hebrevv word to an Arabic root, yet there is no cer¬ 
tainty to be gathered from it: for even words of the 
same language, which are undoubtedly of the same 
theme or primitive, will give us but very doubtful and 
sorry information concerning the true sense of kindred 
words which spring from the same theme. 

Let me give a plain instance or two of this uncertain¬ 
ty. The word strages signifies slaughter; stratum is 
Latin for a bed; stramen is straw; and stragulum is a 
quilt or coverlid: they are all drawn and derived from 
sterno; which signifies to throw down, to kill, or to 
spread abroad. Let the critics tell me what certain 
sense they could put upon either of these four words by 
their mere cognation with each other, or their deriva¬ 
tion from one common verb. Again, who can tell me 
the certain meaning and precise idea of the word honest 
in English, and assure me that it signifies a man of in¬ 
tegrity, justice, and probity, though it is evidently 


rfl2 OF THE SCIENCES, 

derived from honestus in Latin? Whereas honeslus has a 
very different idea, and signifies a man of some figure 
in the world, or a man of honour. Let any man judge 
then how little service toward explaining the Hebrew 
tongue can be furnished from all the language of Arabia. 
Surely a great part of the long learned fatigues and 
tiresome travels of men through this country is almost 
vain and useless to make the Hebrew Bible better un¬ 
derstood. 

As for the Syriac language, it is granted there may 
be some small advantage drawn from the knowledge of 
it, because there is a very ancient translation of the New 
Testament in that tongue; and perhaps this may some¬ 
times give a proper and apposite meaning to a difficult 
and doubtful text, and offer a fair hint for recovering 
the true meaning of the Scripture from the perverse 
glosses of other writers. But there are several com¬ 
mentators and lexicographers who have been acquainted 
with the Syriac language, and have given us the chief 
of these hints in their writings on Scripture. 

And after all, since none of these assistances can yield 
us a sufficient proof of a true interpretation, and give a 
certain sense of a text, who would be persuaded to waste 
any great number of his better hours in such dry studies, 
and in labours of so little profit 5 

XXXI. The Chaldean language, indeed, is much 
nearer to the Hebrew, and it is proper for a divine to 
have some acquaintance with it, because there are several 
verses or chapters of Ezra and Daniel which are written 
in that language: and the old Jewish targums or com¬ 
mentaries, which are written in. the Chaldean tongue, 
may sometimes happen to cast a light upon a little 
doubtful Scripture of the Old Testament. 

But it must be still owned that the knowledge of 
these Eastern tongues does not deserve to be magnified 
to such a degree as some of the proficients in them have 
indulged; wherein they have carried matters beyond all 
reason and justice, since scarce any of the most impor¬ 
tant subjects of the Gospel of Christ and the way of 
salvation can gain any advantage from them. 

XXXII. The art of grammar comes now to be men- 


AND THEIR USE. 


213 


tioned. It is a distinct thing from the mere knowledge 
of the languages; for all mankind are taught from their 
infancy to speak their common tongue, by a natural 
imitation of their mothers and nurses, and those who 
are round about them, without any knowledge of the art 
of grammar, and the various observations and rules that 
relate to it. Grammar indeed is nothing else but rules 
and observations drawn from the common speech of 
mankind in their several languages; and it teaches us to 
speak and pronounce, to spell and write with propriety 
and exactness, according to the custom of those in every 
nation who are or were supposed to speak and write 
their own language best. Now it is a shame for a man 
to pretend to science and study in any of the three 
learned professions, who is not in some measure ac¬ 
quainted with the propriety of those languages with 
which he ought to be conversant in his daily studies, 
and more especially in such as he may sometimes be 
called upon to write as well as read. 

XXXIII. Next to grammar, we proceed to consider 
rhetoric. 

Now rhetoric in general is the art of persuading, 
which may be distinguished into these three parts; viz. 

1. Conveying the sense of the speaker to the under¬ 
standing of the hearers in the clearest and most intelli¬ 
gible manner, by the plainest expressions and the most 
lively and striking representations of it, so that the mind 
may be thoroughly convinced of the thing proposed. 

2. Persuading the will effectually to choose or refuse 
the thing suggested and represented. 3. Raising the 
passions in the most vivid and forcible manner, so as to 
set all the soul and every power of nature at work, to 
pursue or avoid the thing in debate. 

To attain this end there is not only a great deal of 
art necessary in the representation of matters to the 
auditory, but also in the disposition or method of intro¬ 
ducing these particular representations, together with 
the reasons which might convince, and the various 
methods which might persuade and prevail upon the 
hearers. There are certain seasons wherein a violent 
torrent of oratf'on, in a disguised and concealed method, 


214 


OF THE SCIENCES, 


may be more effectual than all the nice forms of logic 
and reasoning. The figures of interrogation and excla¬ 
mation have sometimes a large place and happy effect 
in this sort of discourse, and no figure of speech should 
be wanting here, where the speaker has art enough hap¬ 
pily to introduce it 

There are many remarks and rules laid down by the 
teachers of this art to improve a young genius in those 
glorious talents whereby Tully and Demosthenes ac¬ 
quired that amazing influence and success in their own 
age and nation, and that immortal fame through all 
nations and ages. And it is with great advantage these 
rules may be perused and learned. But a happy genius, 
a lively imagination, and warm passions, together with 
a due degree of knowledge and skill in the subject to be 
debated, and a perpetual perusal of the writings of the 
best orators, and hearing the best speakers, will do more 
to make an orator, than all the rules of art in the world, 
without these natural talents, and this careful imitation 
of the most approved and happiest orators. 

XXXIV. Now you will presently suppose that plead¬ 
ers at the bar have great need of this art of rhetoric; but 
it has been a just doubt, whether pleading in our British 
courts of justice, before a skilful judge, should admit of 
any other aid from rhetoric than that which teaches to 
open a cause clearly; and spread it in the most per¬ 
spicuous, complete, and impartial manner, before the 
eyes of him who judges: for impartial justice being the 
thing which is sought, there should be no artifices used, 
no eloquence or power of language employed to per¬ 
suade the will or work upon the passions, lest the de¬ 
cisive sentence of the judge should be biased or warped 
into injustice. For this reason Mr. Locke would banish 
all pleaders in the law for fees out of his government of 
Carolina, in his posthumous works, though that great 
man might possibly be too severe in so universal a cen¬ 
sure of the profession. 

XXXV. But the case is very different with regard to 
divines: the eloquence of the pulpit, beyond all contro¬ 
versy, has a much larger extent. 

Their business is not to plead a cause of right and wrong 


AND THJ2IR USE. 


215 


before a wise and skilful judge, but to address all the 
ranks of mankind, the high and low, the wise and the 
unwise, the sober and the vicious, and persuade them 
all to pursue and persevere in virtue with regard to them¬ 
selves, in justice and goodness with regard to their 
neighbours, and piety towards God. These are affairs 
of everlasting importance, and most of the persons to 
whom these addresses are made are not wise and skilful 
judges, but are influenced and drawn to the contrary side 
by their own sinful appetites and passions, and bi/bed 
or biased by the corrupt customs of the world. 

There is therefore a necessity not only of a clear and 
faithful representation of things to men, in order to con¬ 
vince their reason and judgment, but of all the skill and 
force of persuasion addressed to the will and the passions. 
So Tully addressed the whole senate of Rome, and De¬ 
mosthenes the Athenian people, among whom were ca¬ 
pacities and inclinations of infinite variety; and therefore 
they made use of all the lightning and thunder, all the 
entreaties and terrors, all the soothing elegancies and 
the flowery beauties of language, which their art could 
furnish them with. Divines in the pulpit have much 
the same sort of hearers, and therefore they should imi¬ 
tate those ancient examples. The understanding indeed 
ought to be first convinced by the plainest and strongest 
force of reasoning; but when this is done, all the 
powerful motives should be used which have any just 
influence upon human nature; all the springs of passion 
should be touched, to awaken the stupid and the thought¬ 
less into consideration, to penetrate and melt the hard¬ 
est heart, to persuade the unwilling, to excite the lazy, 
to reclaim the obstinate, and reform the vicious part of 
mankind, as well as to encourage those who are humble 
and pious, and to support their practice and their hope. 
The tribes of men are sunk into so fatal a degeneracy 
and dreadful distance from God, and from all that is 
holy and happy, that all the eloquence which a preacher 
is master of should be employed in order to recover the 
world from its shameful ruin and wretchedness by the 
Gospel of our blessed Saviour, and restore it to virtue 
and piety, to God and happiness, by the divine power 


216 


OF THE SCIENCES, 


of this Gospel. . O may such glorious masters and sacred 
oratory never be wanting in the pulpits of Great Britain! 

XXXVI. Shall I now speak something of my senti¬ 
ments concerning poesy? 

As for books of poesy, whether in the learned or in 
the modern languages, they are of great use to be read 
at hours of leisure by all persons, that make any pre¬ 
tence to good education or learning; and that for several 
reasons. 

1. Because there are many couplets or stanzas writ¬ 
ten in poetic measures, which contain a variety of mor¬ 
als or rules of practice relating to the common pruden¬ 
tials of mankind, as well as to matters of religion; and 
the poetic numbers (or rhyme, if there be any) add very 
considerable force to the memory. 

Besides, many an elegant and admirable sentiment or 
description of things which are found among the poets 
are well worth.committing to memory, and the partic¬ 
ular measures of verse greatly assist us in recollecting 
such excellent passages, which might sometimes raise 
our conversation from low and grovelling subjects. 

2. In heroic verse, but especially in the grander lyrics, 
there are sometimes such noble elevations of thought 
and passion as illuminate all things around us, and 
convey to the soul most exalted and magnificent images 
and sublime sentiments: these furnish us with glorious 
springs and mediums to raise and aggrandize our con¬ 
ceptions, to warm our souls, to awaken the better pas¬ 
sions, and to elevate them to a divine pitch, and that 
for devotional purposes. It is the lyric ode which has 
shown to the world some of the happiest examples of 
this kind, and I cannot say but this part of poesy lias 
been my favourite amusement above all others. 

And for this reason it is that I have never thought 
the heroic poems, Greek, Latin, or English, which have 
obtained the highest fame in the world are sufficiently 
diversified, exalted, or animated, for want of the intersper- 
sion of now and then an elegiac or lyric ode. This 
might have been done with great and beautiful proprie¬ 
ty, where the poet has introduced a song at a feast, or 
the joys of a victoi v, or soliloquies of divine satisfac- 


AND THEIR USE. 


217 


tion, or the pensive and despairing agonies of distressing 
sorrows. Why should that which is called the most 
glorious form of poesy be bound down and confined to 
such a long and endless uniformity of measures, when 
it should kindle or melt the soul, swell or sink into all 
the various and transporting chances which human na¬ 
ture is capable of? 

Cowley, in his unfinished fragment of the Davideis, 
has shown this way to improvement; and whatever 
blemishes may be found in other parts of that heroic 
essay, this beauty and glory of it ought to be preserved 
for imitation. I am well assured that if Homer and 
Virgil had happened to practise it, it would have been 
renowned and glorified by every critic. I am greatly 
**mistaken if this wise mixture of numbers would not be 
a further reach of perfection than they have ever attain¬ 
ed to without it: let it be remembered, that it is not na¬ 
ture, and strict reason, but a weak and awful reverence 
of antiquity, and the vogue of fallible men, that has 
established these Greek and Roman writings as absolute 
and complete patterns. In several ages there have been 
some men of learning who have very justly disputed 
this glory, and have pointed to many of their mistakes. 

3. But still there is another end of reading poesy, and 
perhaps the most considerable advantage to be obtained 
from it by the bulk of mankind, and that is, to furnish 
our tongues with the richest and the most polite variety 
of phrases and words upon all occasions of life or reli¬ 
gion. He that writes well in verse will often find a 
necessity to send his thoughts in search through all the 
treasure of words that express any one idea in the same 
language, that so he may comport with the measures 
or the rhyme of the verse which he writes, or with his 
own most beautiful and vivid sentiments of the thing 
he describes. Now by much reading of this kind we 
shall insensibly acquire the habit and skill of diversify¬ 
ing our ideas in the most proper and beautiful lan¬ 
guage, whether we write or speak of the things of God 
or men. 

It is a pity that some of these harmonious writers 
have ever indulged any thing uncleanly or impure to 

19 


218 


OF THE SCIENCES, 


defile their paper and abuse the ears of their leaders, 
or to offend against the rules of the nicest virtue and 
politeness: but still amongst the writings of Mr. Dryden, 
and Mr. Pope, and Dr. Young, as well as others, there 
is a sufficient choice in our own language, wherein we 
shall not find any indecency to shock the most modest 
tongue or ear. 

Perhaps there has hardly been a writer m any nation, 
and I may dare to affirm there is none in ours, has a 
richer and happier talent of painting to the life, or has 
ever discovered such a large and inexhausted variety of 
description, as the celebrated Mr. Pope. If you read 
his translation of Homer’s Iliad, you will find almost 
all the terms or phrases in our tongue that are needful 
to express any thing that is grand or magnificent; but* 
if you peruse his Odyssey, which descends much more 
into common life, there is scarce any useful subject of 
discourse or thought, or any ordinary occurrence, which 
he has not cultivated and dressed in the most proper 
language; and yet still he has ennobled and enlivened 
even the lower subjects with the brightest and most 
agreeable ornaments. 

I should add here also, that if the sari^e author had 
more frequently employed his pen on divine themes, his 
short poem on the Messiah, and some part of his letters 
between Abelard and Eloisa, with that ode on the Dy¬ 
ing Christian, &c. sufficiently assure us that his pen 
would have honourably imitated some of the tender 
scenes of penitential sorrow, as well as the sublimer 
odes of the Hebrew Psalmist, and perhaps discovered 
to us, in a better manner—<han any other translation 
has done, how great a poet sat upon the throne of Israel. 

After all that I have said, there is yet a further use 
of reading poesy; and that is, when the mind has been 
fatigued with studies of a more laborious kind, or when it 
is any ways unfit for the pursuit of more difficult sub¬ 
jects, it may be as it were unbent, and repose itself 
awhile on the flowery meadows where the muses dwell. 
It is a very sensible relief to the soul, when it is over¬ 
tired, to amuse itself with the numbers and the beauti¬ 
ful sentiments of the poets; and in a little time this 


AND THEIR USE. 


219 


ngreeable amusement may recover the languid spirits to 
activity and more important service. 

XXXVII. All this I propose to the world as my best 
observations about reading of verse. But if the ques¬ 
tion were offered to me, Shall a student of a bright ge¬ 
nius never divert himself with writing poesy? I would 
answer, Yes, when he cannot possibly help it; a lower 
genius, in mature years, would heartily wish that he 
had spent much more time in reading the best authors 
of this kind, and employed much fewer hours in wri¬ 
ting. But it must be confessed or supposed at least, that 
there may be seasons when it is hardly possible for a 
poetic soul to restrain the fancy or quench the flame, 
when it is hard to suppress the exuberant flow of lofty 
% sentiments, and prevent the imagination from this sort 
of style or language: and that is the only season I think 
wherein this inclination should be indulged, especially 
by persons who have devoted themselves to professions 
of a different kind; and one reason is, because what they 
write in that hour is more likely to carry in it some ap¬ 
pearance above nature, some happy imitation of the dic¬ 
tates of the muse.* 

XXXVIII. There are other things besides history, 
grammar and languages, rhetoric and poesy, which had 
been included under the name of philological knowledge; 
such as an acquaintance with the notions, customs, man¬ 
ners, tempers, polity, &c. of the various nations of the 
earth, or the distinct sects and tribes of mankind. This 
is necessary in order to understand history the better; 
and every man who is a lawyer or a gentleman ought 
to obtain some acquaintance with these things, without 
which he can never read history to any great advantage, 
nor can he maintain his own station and character in 
life with honour and dignity, without some insight into 
them. 

XXXIX. Students in divinity ought to seek a larger 
acquaintance with the Jewish laws, polity, customs, &c. 

*The rnuse,in the ancient heathen sense, is supposed to be a god¬ 
dess; but in the philosophic sense, it can mean no more than a bright 
genius, with a warm and strong imagination elevated to an uncom¬ 
mon degree. 


220 


OF TIIE SCIENCES, &C. 

in order to understand many passages of the Old Testa¬ 
ment and the New, and to vindicate the sacred writers 
from the reproaches of infidels. An acquaintance also 
with many of the Roman and Grecian affairs is needful 
to explain several texts of Scripture in the New Testa¬ 
ment, to lead sincere inquirers into the true and genuine 
sense of the evangelists and apostles, and to guard their 
writings from the unreasonable cavils of men. 

XL. The art of criticism is reckoned by some as a dis¬ 
tinct part of philology; but it is in truth nothing else 
than a more exact or accurate knowledge or skill in the 
other parts of it, and a readiness to apply that knowledge 
upon all occasions, in order to judge well of what re¬ 
lates to these subjects, to explain what is obscure in the 
authors which we read, to supply what is defective, and 
amend what is erroneous in manuscripts or ancient 
copies, to correct the mistakes of authors and editors in 
the sense of the words, to reconcile the controversies 
of the learned, and by this means to spread a juster 
knowledge of these things among the inquisitive part of 
mankind. 

Every man who pretends to the learned professions, 
if he doth not arise to be a critic himself in philological 
matters, he should be frequently conversing with those 
books, whether dictionaries, paraphrasts, commentators, 
or other critics, which may relieve any difficulties he 
meets with, and give him a more exact acquaintance 
with those studies which he pursues. 

And whensoever any person is arrived to such a de¬ 
gree of knowledge in these things as to furnish him well 
for the practice of criticism, let him lake great care that 
pride and vanity, contempt of others, with inward wrath 
and insolence, do not mingle themselves with his re¬ 
marks and censures. Let him remember the common 
frailties of human nature, and the mistakes to which the 
wisest man is sometimes liable, that he may practise this 
art with due modesty and candour. 


* 


THE 

IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND 


PART II. 


INTRODUCTION. 

The chief design of the former part of this book is to 
lead us into proper methods for the improvement of our 
own knowledge. Let us now consider what are the 
best means of improving the minds of others, and of 
communicating to them the knowledge which we have 
acquired. If the treasures of the mind should be hoard¬ 
ed up and concealed, they would profit none besides the 
possessor; and even his advantage by the possession 
would be poor and narrow in comparison of what the 
same treasures would yield, both to himself and to the 
world, by a free communication and diffusion of them. 
Large quantities of knowledge acquired and reserved by 
one man, like heaps of gold and silver, would contract 
a sort of rust and disagreeable aspect by lying in 
everlasting secrecy and silence; but they are burnished 
and glitter by perpetual circulation through the tribes 
of mankind. 

The two chief ways of conveying knowledge to others 
are that of verbal instruction to our disciples, or by 
writing and publishing our thoughts to the world. 

Here therefore I shall propose some observations 
which relate to the conveyance of knowledge to others, 
by regular lectures of verbal instruction, or by conver- 

19 * 




222 


INTRODUCTION. 


sation: I shall represent several of the chief prejudices 
of which learners are in danger, with directions to guard 
against them; and then mention some of the easiest and 
most effectual ways of convincing persons of their mis¬ 
takes, and of dealing with their understanding when 
they labour under the power of prejudice. I shall after¬ 
wards add, by way of appendix, an essay, written many 
years ago, on the subject of Education, when I designed 
a more complete treatise of it. 


METHODS OF TEACHING, &C. 


223 


CHAPTER I. 

0 

METHODS OF TEACHING AND READING LECTURES. 

He that has learned any thing thoroughly, in a clear 
and methodical manner, and has attained a distinct per¬ 
ception, and an ample survey of the whole subject, is 
generally best prepared to teach the same subject in a 
clear and easy method: for having acquired a large and 
distinct idea of it himself, and made it familiar to him 
by frequent meditation, reading, and occasional dis¬ 
course, he is supposed to see it on all sides, to grasp it, 
with all its appendices and relations, in one survey, and 
is better able to represent it to the learner in all its views, 
with all its properties, relations, and consequences. He 
knows which view or side of the subject to hold out first 
to his disciple, and how to propose to his understanding 
that part of it which is easiest to apprehend; and also 
knows how to set it in such a light as is most likely to 
allure and to assist his further inquiry. 

But it is not every one who is a great scholar that 
always becomes the happiest teacher, even though he 
may have a clear conception, and a methodical as well 
as an extensive survey of the branches of any science. 
He must also be well acquainted with words, as well as 
ideas, in a proper variety, that when his disciple does 
not take in the ideas of one form of expression, he may 
change the phrase into several forms, till at last he hits 
the understanding of his scholar, and enlightens it in the 
just idea of truth. 

Besides this, a tutor should be a person of a happy 
and condescending temper, who has patience to bear 
with a slowness of perception or want of sagacity in 
some learners. He should also have much candour of 
soul, to pass a gentle censure on their impertinences, 
and to pity them in their mistakes, and use every rniid 
and engaging method for insinuating knowledge into 
those who are willing and diligent in seeking truth, as 
well as reclaiming those who are wandering into error. 

But of this I ku’e spoken somewhat already in a 


224 


METHODS OF TEACHING, 


chapter of the forrrnr part, and shall have occasion t© 
express somewhat more of it shortly. o 

A very pretty and useful way to lead a person into 
any particular truth is, by questions and answers, which 
is the Socratical method of disputation, and therefore I 
refer the reader to that chapter or section which treats 
of it. On this account dialogues are used as a polite 
and pleasant mode of leading gentlemen and ladies into 
some of the sciences, who seek not the most accurate 
and methodical measure of learning. 

But the most useful, and perhaps the most excellent 
way of instructing students in any of the sciences, is by 
reading lectures, as tutors in the academy do to their 
pupils. 

The first work is to choose a book well written, 
which contains a short scheme or abstract of that science, 
or at least it should not be a very copious and diffusive 
treatise. Or if the tutor knows not any such book al¬ 
ready written, he should draw up an abstract of that 
science himself, containing the most substantial and im¬ 
portant parts of it, disposed in such a method as he best 
approves. 

Let a chapter or section of this be read daily by the 
learner, on which the tutor should paraphrase in this 
manner, namely,— 

He should explain both words and ideas more largely, 
and especially what is dark and difficult should be 
opened and illustrated, partly by various forms of speech, 
and partly by apt similitudes and examples. Where the 
sense of the author is dubious, it must also be fixed and 
determined. 

Where the arguments are strong and cogent, they 
should be enforced by some further paraphrase, and the 
truth of the inferences should be made plainly to appear. 
Where the arguments are weak and insufficient, they 
should be either confirmed or rejected as useless; and 
new arguments, if need be, should be added to support 
that doctrine. 

What is treated very concisely in the author should 
be amplified; and where several things are laid closely 


AND READING LECTURES. 


225 

together, they must be taken to pieces and opened by 
parts. 

Where the tutor differs from the author which he 
reads, he should gently point out and confute his mis¬ 
takes. 

Where the method and order of the book is just and 
happy, it should be pursued and commended: where it 
is defective and irregular, it should be corrected. 

The most necessary, the most.remarkable and useful 
parts of that treatise, or of that science, should be pecu¬ 
liarly recommended to the learners, and pressed upon 
them that they would retain it in memory; and what is 
more necessary or superfluous should be distinguished, 
lest the learner should spend too much time in the more 
needless parts of a science. 

The various ends, uses, and services of that science, 
or of any part of it, should also be declared and exem¬ 
plified, as far as the tutor hath opportunity and furni¬ 
ture to do it; particularly in mathematics and natural 
philosophy. 

And if there be any thing remarkably beautiful or de¬ 
fective in the style of the writer, it is proper for the 
tutor to make a just remark upon it. 

While he is reading and explaining any particular 
treatise to his pupils, he may compare the different 
editions of the same book, or different writers upon the 
same subject: he should inform them where that subject 
is treated by other authors which they may peruse, and 
lead his disciples thereby to a further elucidation, con¬ 
firmation, or improvement of that theme of discourse in 
which he is instructing them. 

It is alluring and agreeable to the learner also, now 
and then, to be entertained with some historical remarks 
on any occurrences or useful stories which the tutor has 
met with, relating to the several parts of such a science; 
provided he does not put off his pupils merely with such 
stories, and neglect to give them ,a solid and rational in¬ 
formation of the theme in hand. Teachers should en¬ 
deavour, as far as possible, to join profit and pleasure 
together, and mingle delight with their instructions; 
but at the same time they must take heed that they do 


226 


METHODS OP TEACHING, 

not merely amuse the ears and gratify the fancy of their 
disciples without enriching their minds. 

In reading lectures of instruction, let the teacher be 
very solicitous that the learners take up his meaning; 
and therefore he should frequently inquire whether he 
expresses himself intelligibly? whether they understand 
his sense, and take in all his ideas as he endeavours to 
convey them in his own forms of speech? 

“ It is necessary that he who instructs others should 
use the most proper style for the conveyance of his ideas 
easilj 7 into the minds of those who hear him; and though 
in teaching the sciences, a person is not,confined to the 
same rules by which we must govern our language in 
conversation, for he must necessarily make use of many 
terms of art and hard words, yet he should never use 
them merely to show his learning, nor affect sounding 
language without necessity, a caution which we shall 
further inculcate anon. 

I think it very convenient and proper, if not abso¬ 
lutely necessary, that when a tutor reads a following 
lecture to his pupils, he should run over the foregoing 
lecture in questions proposed to them, and by this means 
acquaint himself with their daily proficiency. # It is in 
vain for the learner to object, Surely we are not school¬ 
boys, to say our lessons again: we came to be taught, 
not to be catechised and examined. But, alas! how is 
it possible for a teacher to proceed in his instructions, 
if he knows not how far the learner takes in and remem¬ 
bers what he has been taught? 

Besides, I must generally believe it is sloth or idle¬ 
ness, it is real ignorance, incapacity, or unreasonable 
pride, that makes a learner refuse to give his teacher an 
account how far he has profited by his last instructions. 
For want of this constant examination young gentle¬ 
men have spent some idle and useless years, even under 

* This precaution, though never to be neglected, is of especial 
importance when a pupil is entering on any new branchof learning, 
where it is absolutely necessary that the fundamental definitions and 
principles should not only be clearly understood, but rendered very 
familiar to' the mind; and probably most tutors have found young 
persons sadly bewildered as they have gone on in their lectures, for 
want of a little more patience and care in this respect. 


227 


AND READING LECTURES. 

\ 

daily labours and inspections of a learned teacher; and 
they have returned from the academy without the gain 
of any one science, and even with the shameful loss of 
their classical learning, that is, the knowledge of Greek 
and Latin, which they had learned in the grammar- 
school. 

Let the teacher alw r ays accommodate himself to the 
genius, temper, and capacity of his disciples, and prac¬ 
tise various methods of prudence to allure, persuade, 
and assist every one of them in their pursuit of 
knowledge. 

Where the scholar has less capacity, let the teacher en¬ 
large his illustrations; let him search and find out where 
the learner sticks, what is the difficulty, and thus let 
him help the labouring intellect. 

Where the learner manifests a forward genius and a 
sprightly curiosity by frequent inquiries, let the teacher 
oblige such an inquisitive soul by satisfying those ques¬ 
tions as far as may be done with decency and conveni- 
ency; and where these inquiries are unreasonable, let 
him not silence the young inquirer with a magisterial 
rebuff, but with much candour and gentleness postpone 
those questions, and refer them to a proper hour. 

Curiosity is a useful spring of knowledge: it should 
be encouraged in children, and awakened by frequent 
and familiar methods of talking with them. It should 
be indulged in youth, but not without a prudent mode¬ 
ration. In those who have too much, it should be 
limited by a wise and gentle restraint or delay, lest by 
wandering after every thing, they learn nothing to per¬ 
fection. In those who have too little, it should be ex¬ 
cited, lest they grow stupid, narrow-spirited, self-satis¬ 
fied, and never attain a treasure of ideas, or an ampli¬ 
tude of understanding. 

Let not the teacher demand or expect things too sub¬ 
lime and difficult from the humble, modest, and fearful 
disciple: and where such a one gives a just and happy 
answer, even to plain and easy questions, let him have 
words of commendation and love ready for him. Let 
him encourage every spark of kindling light, till it grow 
up to bright evidence and confirmed knowledge. 


228 


METHODS OF TEACHING, &C. 

When he finds a lad pert, positive, and presuming, 
let the tutor take every just occasion to show him his 
error; let him set the absurdity in complete light before 
him, and convince him by a full demonstration of his 
mistake, till he sees and feels it, and learns to be modest 
and humble. 

A teacher should not only observe the different spirit 
and humor among his scholars, but he should watch the 
various efforts of their reason and growth of their un¬ 
derstanding. He should practise in his young nursery 
of learning as a skilful gardener does in his vegetable 
dominions, and apply prudent methods of cultivation to 
every plant. Let him with a discreet and gentle hand 
nip or prune the irregular shoots; let him guard and en¬ 
courage the tender buddings of the understanding, till 
they be raised to a blossom, and let him kindly cherish 
the younger fruits. 

The tutor should take every occasion to instil know¬ 
ledge into his disciples, and make use of every occur¬ 
rence of life t to raise some profitable conversation upon 
it; he should frequently inquire something of his disciples 
that may set their young reason to work, and teach 
them how to form inferences, and to draw one proposi¬ 
tion out of another. 

Reason being that faculty of the mind which he has 
to deal with in his pupils, let him endeavour by all pro¬ 
per and familiar methods to call it into^exercise, and to 
enlarge the powers of it. He should take frequent oppor¬ 
tunities to show them when an idea is clear or confused, 
when the proposition is evident or doubtful, and when 
an argument is feeble or strong. And by this means 
their minds will be so formed, that whatsoever he propo¬ 
ses with evidence and strength of reason they will 
readily receive. 

When any uncommon appearances arise in the natu¬ 
ral, moral, or political world, he should invite and in¬ 
struct them to make their remarks on it, and give theni 
the best reflections of his own for the improvement of 
their minds. 

He should by all means make it appear that he loves 


I 


OF AN INSTRUCTIVE STYLE. 229 

V 

his pupils, and that he seeks nothing so much as their i 
increase of knowledge, and their growth in all valuable 
acquirements; this will engage their affection to his 
person, and procure a just attention to his lectures. 

And indeed there is but little hope that a teacher 
should obtain any success in his instructions, unless those 
that hear him have some good degree of esteem aid re¬ 
spect for his person and character. And here I cannot 
but take notice by the way, that it is a matter of infinite 
and unspeakable injury to the people of any town or 
parish where the minister lies under contempt. If he 
has procured it by his own conduct he is doubly crimi¬ 
nal, because of the injury he does to the souls of them 
that hear him: but if this contempt and reproach be cast 
upon him by the wicked, malicious, and unjust censures 
of men, they must bear all the ill consequences of re¬ 
ceiving no good by his labours, and will be accountable 
hereafter to the great and divine Judge of all. 

It would be very necessary to add in this place (if 
tutors were not well apprized of it before) that since 
learners are obliged to seek a divine blessing on their 
studies by fervent prayer to the God of all wisdom, their 
tutors should go before them in this pious practice, and 
make daily addresses to Heaven for the success of their 
instructions. 


CHAPTER II. 

OF AN INSTRUCTIVE STYLE. 

The most necessary and most useful character of a 
style fit for instruction is that it be plain, perspicuous, 
and easy. And here I shall first point out all those 
errors in a st) 7e which diminish or destroy the perspicuity 
of it, and then mention a few directions how to obtain 
a perspicuous and easy style. 

The errors of style, which must be avoided by teach¬ 
ers, are these that follow: 


20 



230 


OF AN INSTRUCTIVE STYLE. 


1. The use of many foreign words, which are not 
sufficiently naturalized and mingled with the language 
which we speak or write. It is true, that in teaching 
the sciences in English, we must sometimes use words 
borrowed from the Greek and Latin; for we have not in 
English names for a variety of subjects which belong 
to learning; but when a man affects, upon all occasions, 
to bring in long-sounding words from the ancient lan¬ 
guages, without necessity, and mingles French and 
other outlandish terms and phrases, where plain English 
would serve as well, he betrays a vain and foolish genius, 
unbecoming a teacher. 

2. Avoid a fantastic learned style, borrowed from the 

various sciences, where the subject and matter do not 
require the use of them. Do not affect terms of art on 
every occasion, nor seek to show your learning by sound¬ 
ing words and dark phrases; this is properly called ped¬ 
antry. v 

Young preachers, just come from the schools, are 
often tempted to fill their sermons with logical and meta¬ 
physical terms in explaining their text, and feed their 
hearers with sonorous words of vanity. This scholastic 
language perhaps may flatter their own ambition, and 
raise a wonderment at their learning among the staring 
multitude, without any manner of influence toward the 
instruction of the ignorant, or the reformation of the 
immoral or impious: these terms of art are but the tools 
of an artificer, by which his work is wrought in pri¬ 
vate: but the tools ought not to appear in the finished 
workmanship. 

There are some persons so fond of geometry, that 
they bring in lines and circles, tangents and parabolas, 
theorems, problems, and postulates, upon all occasions. 
Others who have dealt in astronomy, borrow even their 
nouns and their verbs in their common discourse from 
the stars and planets. Instead of saying Jacob hid 
twelve sons, they tell you Jacob had as many sons as 
there are signs in the zodiac. If they describe an in¬ 
constant person, they make a planet of him, and set 
him forth in all his appearances, direct, retrograde, and 
stationary. If a candle be set behind a screen, 


OF AN INSTRUCTIVE STYLE. 


231 


they call it eclipsed; and tell you fine stories of the or¬ 
bit and the revolutions, the radii and the limb or cir¬ 
cumference of a cart-wheel. 

Others again dress up. their sense in chymical lan¬ 
guage. Extracts and oils, salts and essences, exalt and 
invigorate their discourses: a great wit with them is sub¬ 
limated spirit, and a blockhead is a caput mortuum. A 
certain doctor in his bill swells in his own idea, when 
he tells the town that he has been counsellor to the 
counsellors of several kings and princes; that he has 
arrived at the knowledge of the green, black, and 
golden dragon, known only to magicians and hermetic 
philosophers. It would be well if the quacks alone had 
a patent for this language. 

3. There are some fine affected words that are used 
only at court; and some peculiar phrases that are sound¬ 
ing or gaudy, and belong only to the theatre; these 
should not come into the lectures of instruction; the 
language of poets has too much of metaphor in it to 
lead mankind into clear and distinct ideas of things: the 
business of poesy is to strike the soul with a glaring 
light, and to urge the passions into a flame by splendid 
shows, by strong images, and a pathetic vehemence of 
style: but it is another sort of speech that is best suited 
to lead the calm inquirer into just conceptions of things. 

4. There is a mean vulgar style, borrowed from the 
lower ranks of mankind, the basest characters, and 
meanest affairs of life: this is also to be avoided; for it 
should be supposed, that persons of liberal education 
have not been bred up within the hearing of such lan¬ 
guage, and consequently they cannot understand it; be¬ 
sides that it would create very offensive ideas, should 
we borrow even similes for illustration from the scul¬ 
lery, the dunghill, and the jakes. 

5. An obscure and mysterious manner of expression 
and cloudy language is to be avoided. Some persons 
have been led by education, or by some foolish preju¬ 
dices, into a dark and unintelligible way of thinking and 
speaking; and this continues with them all their lives, 
and clouds and confounds their ideas; perhaps some of 
these may have been blessed with a great and compre- 


232 


OF AN INSTRUCTIVE STVJLE. 


hensive genius, with sublime natural parts, and a tor¬ 
rent of ideas flowing in upon them; yet for want of 
clearness in the manner of their conception and lan¬ 
guage, they sometimes drown their own subject of dis¬ 
course, and overwhelm their argument in darkness and 
perplexity: such preachers as have read much of the 
mystical divinity of the papists, and imitated their man¬ 
ner of expression, have many times buried a fine under¬ 
standing under the obscurity of such a style. 

6. A long and tedious style is very improper for a 
teacher, for this also lessens the perspicuity of it. Some 
learned writers are never satisfied unless they fill up 
every sentence with a great number of ideas and senti¬ 
ments; they swell their propositions to an enormous 
size by explications, exceptions, and precautions, lest 
they should be mistaken, and crowd them all into the 
same period: they involve and darken their discourse by 
many parentheses, and prolong their sentences to a tire¬ 
some extent, beyond the reach of a common compre¬ 
hension: such sort of writers or speakers may be rich 
in knowledge, but they are seldom fit to communicate 
it. He that would gain a happy talent for the instruc¬ 
tion of others must know how to disentangle and divide 
his thoughts, if too many of them are ready to crowd 
into one paragraph; and let him lather speak three sen¬ 
tences distinctly and perspicuously, which the hearer 
receives at once with his ears and his soul, than crowd 
all the thoughts into one sentence, which the hearer 
has forgot before he can understand it. 

But this leads me to the next thing I proposed, which 
was to mention some methods whereby such a perspi¬ 
cuity of style may be obtained as is proper for in¬ 
struction. 

1. Accustom yourself to read those authors who 
think and write with great clearness and evidence, such 
as convey their ideas into your understanding as fast as 
your eye or tongue can run over their sentences: this 
will imprint upon the mind a habit of imitation: we 
shall learn the style with which we are very conver¬ 
sant, and practise it with ease and success. 

2. Getadislinct and comprehensive knowledge of 


OF AN INSTRUCTIVE STYLE. 


233 

the subject which you treat of, survey it on all sides, and 
make yourself perfect master of it; then you will have 
all the sentiments that relate to it in your view and un¬ 
der your command; and your tongue will very easily 
clothe those ideas with words which your mind has first 
made so familiar and easy to itself. 

Scribendi recte sapere cst et principium et Tons: 

Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur. 

Hor. de Art Poetiea. 

Good teaching from good knowledge springs; 

Words will make haste to follow things. 

3. Be well skilled in the language which you speak, 
acquaint yourself with all the idioms and special phrases 
of it, which are necessary to convey the needful 
ideas on the subject of which you treat in the most va¬ 
rious and most easy manner to the understanding of 
the hearer: the variation of a phrase in several forms is 
of admirable use to instruct; it is like turning all sides 
of the subject to view; and if the learner happen not to 
take in the ideas in one form of speech, probably anoth¬ 
er may be successful for that end. 

Upon this account I have always thought it a useful 
manner of instruction, which is used in some Latin 
schools, which they call variation. Take some plain 
sentence in the English tongue, and turn it into many 
forms in Latin; as for instance, A wolf let into the 
sheepfold will devour the sheep: If you let a wolf into 
the fold, the sheep will be devoured: The wolf will de¬ 
vour the sheep, if the sheepfold be left opeft: If the fold 
bo not shut carefully, the wolf will devour the sheep 
The sheep will be devoured by the wolf, if it find the 
way into the fold open: There is no defence of the sheep 
from the wolf, unless it be kept out of the fold: A slaugh¬ 
ter will be made among the sheep, if the wolf can get 
into the fold. Thus, by turning the active voice of 
verbs into the passive, and the nominative case of nouns 
into the accusative, and altering the connexion of short 
sentences by different adverbs or conjunctions, and by 
ablative cases with a preposition brought instead of the 
nominative, or by particles sometimes put instead of 
the verbs, the negation of the contrary instead of the 
20 * 


OF AN INSTRUCTIVE STYLE. 


234 

assertion of the thing first proposed, a great variety of 
forms of speech will be created which shall express the 
same sense. 

4. Acquire a variety of words, a copia verborum. Let 
your memory be rich in synonymous terms, or words 
expressing the same thing: this will not only attain the 
same happy effect with the variation of phrases in the 
foregoing direction, but it will add a beauty also to your 
style, by securing you from an appearance of tautology, 
or repeating the same words too often, which sometimes 
may disgust the ear of the learner. 

5. Learn the art of shortening your sentences by 
dividing a long complicated period into two or three 
small ones. When others connect and join two or three 
sentences in one by relative pronouns, as, which, where¬ 
of, wherein, whereto, &c. .and by parentheses frequently 
inserted, do you rather divide them into distinct periods; 
or at least, if they must be united, let it be done rather 
by conjunctions and copulatives, that they may appear 
like distinct sentences, and give less confusion to the 
hearer or reader. 

I know no method so effectually to learn what I 
mean, as to take now and then some page of an author, 
who is guilty of such a long involved parenthetical style, 
and translate it into plainer English, by dividing the ideas 
or the sentences asunder, and multiplying the periods, 
till the language become smooth and easy, and intelli¬ 
gible at first reading. 

6. Talk frequently to young and ignorant persons 
upon subjects which are new and unknown to them, 
and be diligent to inquire whether they understand 
you or no: this will put you upon changing your phrases 
and forms of speech in a variety, till you can hit 
their capacity, and convey your ideas into their under¬ 
standing. 


OF CONVINCING OF TRUTH, &C. 


235 


CHAPTER III. 

OF CONVINCING OTHER PERSONS OF ANY TRUTH, OR DE¬ 
LIVERING THEM FROM ERRORS AND MISTAKES. 

When we are arrived at a just and rational establish¬ 
ment in an opinion, whether it relate to religion or 
common life, we are naturally desirous of bringing all 
the world into our sentiments; and this proceeds from 
the affectation and pride of superior influence upon the 
judgment of our fellow creatures, much more frequent¬ 
ly than it does from a sense of duty, or a love of truth; 
so vicious and corrupt is human nature. Yet there is 
such a thing to be found as an honest and sincere de¬ 
light in propagating truth, arising from a dutiful regard 
to the honours of our Maker, and a hearty love to man¬ 
kind. Now, if we would be successful in our attempts 
to convince men of their errors, and promote the truth, 
let us divest ourselves, as far as possible, of that pride 
and affectation which I mentioned before; and seek to 
acquire that disinterested love to men, and zeal for the 
truth, which will naturally lead us into the best meth¬ 
ods to promote it. 

And here the following directions may be useful: 

1. If you would convince a person of his mistake, 
choose a proper place, a happy hour, and the fittest qpn- 
current circumstance for this purpose. Do not unsea¬ 
sonably set upon him when he is engaged in the midst 
of other affairs, but when his soul is at Kberty and at 
leisure to hear and attend. Accost him not upon that 
subject when his spirit is ruffled or discomposed with 
any occurrences of life, and especially when he has 
heated his passions in the defence of a contrary opinion; 
but rather seize some golden opportunity, when some 
occurrences of life may cast a favourable aspect upon 
the truth of which you would convince him, or which 
may throw some dark and unhappy colour or consequen¬ 
ces upon that error from which you would fain deliver 
him. There are in life some mollissima tempora fandi , 
some very agreeable moments of addressing a person, 
which, if rightly managed, may render your attempts 


236 OF CONVINCING OF TRUTH, OR 

much more successful, and his conviction easy and 
pleasant. 

2. Make it appear, by your whole conduct to the 
person you would teach, that you mean him well; that 
your design is not to triumph over his opinion, nor to 
expose his ignorance, or his incapacity of defending 
what he asserts. Let him see that it is not your aim to 
advance your own character as a disputant; nor to set 
yourself up for an instructor of mankind; but that you 
love him, and seek his true interest; and do not only as¬ 
sure him of this in words, when you are entering on an 
argument with him, but let the whole of your conduct 
to him at all times demonstrate your real friendship for 
him. Truth and argument come with particular force 
from the mouth of one whom we trust and love. 

3. The softest and gentlest address to the erroneous 
is the best way to convince them of their mistake. 
Sometimes it is necessary to represent to your opponent 
that he is not far from the truth, and that you would 
fain draw him a little nearer to it. Commend and es¬ 
tablish whatever he says that is just and true, as our 
blessed Saviour treated the young scribe, when he an¬ 
swered well concerning the two great commandments, 
“Thou art not far,” says our Lord, “from the kingdom 
of heaven,” Mark, xii. 34. Imitate the mildness and 
conduct of the blessed Jesus. 

Come as near your opponent as you can in all your 
propositions, and yield to him as much as you dare in a 
consistence with truth and justice. 

It is a very great and fatal mistake in persons who 
attempt to convince and reconcile others to their party, 
when they make the difference appear as wide as possi¬ 
ble; this is shocking to any person who is to be convin¬ 
ced; he will choose rather to keep and maintain his own 
opinions, if he cannot come into yours without renoun¬ 
cing and abandoning every thing that he believed be¬ 
fore. Human nature must be flattered a little as well 
as reasoned with, that so the argument may be able to 
come at his understanding, which otherwise will be 
thrust off at a distance. If you charge a man with 
nonsense and absurdities, with heresy and self-contra' 


DELIVERING FROM ERROR. 


237 


diction, you take a very wrong step toward convincing 
him. 

Always remember that error is,not to be rooted out 
of the mind of man by reproaches and railing, by flash¬ 
es of wit and biting jests, by loud exclamations of sharp 
ridicule: long declamations, and triumph over our neigh¬ 
bour’s mistake, will not prove the way to convince him; 
these are signs either of a bad cause, or a want of argu¬ 
ments or capacity for the defence of a good one. 

4. Set therefore a constant watch over yourself, lest 
you grow warm in dispute before you are aware. The 
passions never clear the understanding, but raise dark¬ 
ness, clouds, and confusion in the soul: human nature is 
like water which has mud at the bottom of it, it may 
be clear when it is calm and undisturbed, and the ideas, 
like pebbles, appear bright at the bottom; but when once 
it is stirred and moved by passion, the mud rises upper¬ 
most, and spreads confusion and darkness over all the 
ideas: you cannot set things in so just and so clear a light 
before the eyes of your neighbour, while your own con¬ 
ceptions are clouded with heat and passion. 

Besides, when your own spirits are a little disturbed, 
and your wrath is awakened, this naturally kindles the 
same fire in your correspondent, and prevents him from 
taking in your ideas, were they ever so clear; for his 
passions are engaged all on a sudden for the defence of 
his own mistakes, and they combat as fiercely as yours 
do, which perhaps may be awakened on the side of 
truth. 

To provoke a person whom you would convince, not 
only arouses his anger, and sets it against your doctrine, 
but it directs its resentment against your person, as well 
as against all your instructions and arguments. You must 
treat an opponent like a friend, if you would persuade 
him to learn any thing from you; and this is one great 
reason why there is so little success on either side be¬ 
tween two disputants, or controversial writers, because 
they are so ready to interest their passions in the sub¬ 
ject of contest, and thereby to prevent the mutual light 
that might be given and received on either side: ambi¬ 
tion, indignation, and a professed zeal, reign on both 


» 


238 


OF CONVINCING OF TRUTH, OR 


sides: victory is the point designed, while truth is pre¬ 
tended; and truth oftentimes perishes in the fray, or re¬ 
tires from the field of battle: the combatants end just 
where they began, their understandings hold fast the 
same opinions, perhaps with this disadvantage, that they 
are a little more obstinate and rooted in them, without 
fresh reason; and they generally come off with the loss 
of temper and charity. 

5. Neither attempt nor hope to convince a person of 
his mistake by any penal methods or severe usage. 
There is no light brought into the mind by all the fire 
and sword, and bloody persecutions, that w T ere ever in¬ 
troduced into the world. One would think both the 
princes, the priests, and the people, the learned and the 
unlearned, the great and the mean, should have all by this 
time seen the folly and madness of seeking to propagate 
the truth by the laws of cruelty: we compel a beast to the 
yoke by blows, because the ox and the ass have no under¬ 
standing: but intellectual powers are not to be fettered and 
compelled at this rate. Men cannot believe what they 
will, nor change their religion and their sentiments as 
they please: they may be made hypocrites by the forms 
of severity, and constrained to profess what they do not 
believe; they may be forced to comply with external 
practices and ceremonies contrary to their own con¬ 
sciences; but this can never please God, nor profit men. 

6. In order to convince another, you should always 
make choice of those arguments that are best suited to 
his understanding and capacity, his genius and temper, 
his state, station, and circumstances. If I were to per¬ 
suade a ploughman of the truth of any form of church 
government, it should not be attempted by the use of 
Greek and Latin fathers; but from the word of God, the 
light of nature, and the common reason of things. 

7. Arguments should always be proposed in such a 
manner as may lead the mind onward to perceive the 
truth in a clear and agreeable light, as well as to con¬ 
strain the assent by the power of reasoning. Clear 
ideas, in many cases, are as useful towards conviction 
os a well formed and unanswerable syllogism. 

8. Allow the person you desire to instruct a reasonable 


DELIVERING FROM ERROR. 


239 


time to enter into the force of your arguments. When 
you have declared your own sentiments in the brightest 
manner of illustration, and enforced them with the 
most convincing arguments, you are not to suppose that 
your friend should be immediately convinced, and re¬ 
ceive the truth: habitude in a particular way of think¬ 
ing, as well as in most other things, obtains the force of 
nature; and you cannot expect to wean a man from his 
accustomed errors but by Slow degrees, and by his own 
assistance; entreat him therefore not to judge on the 
sudden, nor determine against you at once; but that he 
would please to review your scheme, reflect upon your 
arguments with all the impartiality he is capable of, 
and take time to think these over again at large; at 
least, that he would be disposed to hear you speak yet 
further on this subject without pain or aversion. 

Address him therefore in an obliging manner, and 
say, I am not so fond as to think I have placed the sub¬ 
ject in such lights as to throw you on a sudden into a 
new track of thinking, or to make you immediately lay 
aside your present opinions or designs; all that 1 hope 
is, that some hint or other which I have given is capa¬ 
ble of being improved by you to your own conviction, 
or possibly it may lead you to such a train of reasoning, 
as in time to effect a change in your thoughts. Which 
hint leads me to add,— 

9. Labour as much as possible to make the person 
you would teach his own instructor. Human nature 
may be allured, by a secret pleasure and pride in its own 
reasoning, to seem to find out by itself the very thing 
that you would teach; and there are some persons that 
have so much t>f this natural bias toward self rooted in 
them, that they can never be convinced of a mistake by 
the plainest and strongest arguments to the contrary, 
though the demonstration glare in their faces; but they 
may be tempted, by such gentle insinuations, to follow 
a track of thought which you propose, till they have 
wound themselves out - of their own error, and led 
themselves hereby into your own opinion, if you do but 
let it appear that they are under their own guidance 
rather than yours. And perhaps there is nothing which 


240 OF CONVINCING OF TRUTH, OR 

shows more dexterity of address than this secret influ¬ 
ence over the minds of others, which they do not discern 
even while they follow it. 

10. If you can gain the main point in question, be 
not very solicitous about the nicety with which it shall 
be expressed. Mankind is so vain a thing, that it is not 
willing to derive from another; and though it cannot 
have every thing from itself, yet it would seem at least 
to mingle something of its own with what it derives 
elsewhere: therefore, when you have set your sentiment 
in the fullest light, and proved it in the most effectual 
manner, an opponent will bring in some frivolous and 
useless distinction, on purpose to change the form of 
words in the question, and acknowledge that he re¬ 
ceives your propositions in such a sense, and in such a 
manner of expression, though he cannot receive it in 
your terms and phrases. Vanillus will confess he is 
now convinced, that a man who behaves well in the 
state ought not to be punished for his religion, but yet 
he will not consent to allow a universal toleration of 
all religions which do not injure the state, which is the 
proposition I had been proving. Well, let Vanillus, 
therefore, use his own language; I am glad he is con¬ 
vinced of the truth; he shall have leave to dress it in his 
own way. 

To these directions I shall add two remarks in the 
conclusion of this chapter, which would not so properly 
fall under the preceding directions. 

I. Remark.—When you have laboured to instruct a 
person in some controverted truth, and yet he retains 
some prejudice against it, so that he doth not yield to 
the convincing force of your arguments, you may some¬ 
times have happy success in convincing him of that 
truth, by setting him to read a weak author who writes 
against it: a young reader will find such pleasure in 
being able to answer the arguments of the opposer, that 
he will drop his former prejudices against the truth, and 
yield to the power and evidence of your reason. . I confess 
this looks like setting up one prejudice to overthrow 
another; but where prejudices cannot be fairly removed 


DELIVERING FROM ERROR 


24 ! 


by the dint of reason, the wisest and best of teachers 
will sometimes find it necessary to make a way for 
reason and truth to take place, by this contrast of pre¬ 
judices. 

II. Remark.—When our design is to convince a 
w r hole family or community of persons of any mistake, 
and to lead them into any truth, we may justly suppose 
there are various reigning prejudices among them; and 
therefore it is not safe to attempt, nor so easy to effect 
it, by addressing the whole number at once. Such a 
method has been often found to raise a sudden alarm, 
and has produced a violent opposition even to the most 
fair, pious, and useful proposal; so that he who made the 
motion coqjd never carry his point. 

We must therefore first make as sure as we can of 
the most intelligent and learned, at least the most lead¬ 
ing persons amongst them, by addressing them apart 
prudently, and offering proper reasons, till they are con¬ 
vinced and engaged on the side of truth; and these may 
with more success apply themselves to others of the 
same community: yet the original proposer should-not 
neglect to make a distinct application to all the rest, so 
far as circumstances admit. 

Where a thing is to be determined by a number of 
votes, he should labour to secure a good majority; and 
then take care that the most proper persons should move 
and argue the matter in public, lest it be quashed in 
the very first proposal by some prejudice against the 
proposer. 

So unhappily are our circumstances situated in this 
world, that if truth, and justice, and goodness, could 
put on human forms, and descend from heaven to pro¬ 
pose the most divine and useful doctrines, and bring 
with them the clearest evidence, and publish them at 
once to a multitude whose prejudices are engaged 
against them, the proposal would be vain and fruitless, 
and would neither convince nor persuade; so necessary 
it is to join art and dexterity, together with the force 
of reason, to convince mankind of truth, unless we 
2] * 


242 


USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. 


came furnished with miracles or omnipotence to create 
a conviction.* 


CHAPTER IV. 

OF AUTHORITY. OF THE ABUSE OF IT: AND OF ITS REAL 
AND PROPER USE AND SERVICE. 

The influence which other persons have upon our 
opinions is usually called authority. The power of it 
is so great and widely extensive, that there is scarce any 
person in the world entirely free from the impressions 
of it, even after their utmost watchfulness and care to 
avoid it. Our parents and tutors, yea, our very nurses, 
determine a multitude of our sentiments; our friends 
our neighbours, the custom of the country where we 
dwell, and the established opinions of mankind, form 
our belief: the great, the wise, the pious, the learned, 
and the ancient, the king, the priest, and the philoso¬ 
pher, are characters of mighty efficacy to persuade us to 
receive what they dictate. These may be ranked under 
different heads of prejudice, but they are all of a kindred 
nature, and may be reduced to this one spring or head 
of .authority. 

I have treated of these particularly in Logic, Part 11. 
Chapter iii. Section 4 ; yet, a few other remarks occurring 
among my papers, I thought it not improper to let them 
find a place here. 

Cicero was well acquainted with the unhappy influ¬ 
ences of authority, and complains of it in his first book 
De Nalura Deorum: “ In disputes and controversies 
(says he) it is not so much the authors or patrons of any 
opinion, as the weight and force of argument, which 
should influence the mind. The authority of those who 

* The conduct of Christ and his apostles, armed as they were with 
supernatural powers, in the gradual openings of truths, against which 
the minds of their disciples were strongly prejudiced, may not only 
secure such an address from the imputation of dishonest craf', but 
may demonskate the expediency, and in some cases the necessity, of 
attending to it. 



USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. 243 

teach is a frequent hinderance to those who learn, be¬ 
cause they utterly neglect to exercise their own judg¬ 
ment, taking for granted whatsoever others whom they 
reverence have judged for them. I can by no means ap¬ 
prove what we learn from the Pythagoreans, that if any 
thing asserted in disputation was questioned, they were 
wont to answer, Ipse dixit, that is, He himself said so, 
meaning Pythagoras. So far did prejudice prevail, that 
authority without reason was sufficient to determine 
disputes, and to establish truth.” 

All human authority, though it be never so ancient, 
though it hath had universal sovereignty, and swayed 
all the learned and the vulgar world for some thousands 
of years, yet has no certain and undoubted claim to 
truth: nor is it any violation of good manners to enter a 
caveat with due decency against its pretended dominion. 
What is there among all the sciences that has been 
longer established and more universally received ever 
since the days of Aristotle, and perhaps for ages before 
he lived, than this, that all heavy bodies whatsoever 
tend toward the centre of the earth? But Sir Isaac 
Newton has found, that those bulky and weighty bodies, 
the earth and all the planets, tend toward the centre of 
the sun, whereby the authority of near three thousand 
years or more is not only called in question, but actually 
refuted and renounced. 

Again: Was ever any thing more universally agreed 
among the nation of poets and critics, than that Homer 
and Virgil are inimitable writers of heroic poems? and 
whoever presumed to attack their writings, or their 
reputation, was either condemned for his malice or de¬ 
rided for his folly. These ancient authors have been 
supposed to derive peculiar advantages to aggrandize 
their verses from the heathen theology, and that variety 
of appearances in which they could represent their gods, 
and mingle them with the affairs of men. Yet within 
these few years Sir Richard Blackmore (whose prefaces 
are universally esteemed superior in their kind to any 
of his poems) has ventured to pronounce some noble 
truths in that excellent preface to his poem called Alfred, 
and has bravely demonstrated there, beyonfl all possible 


244 


USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. 


exception, that both Virgil and Homer are often guilty 
of very gross blunders, indecencies, and shameful im¬ 
proprieties; and that they were so far from deriving any 
advantage from the rabble of heathen gods, that their 
theology almost unavoidably exposed them to many of 
those blunders; and that it is not possible upon the foot 
of gentile superstition to write a perfect epic poem: 
whereas the sacred religion of the Bible would furnish a 
poem with much more just and glorious scenes, and a 
nobler machinery. 

Mr. Dennis also had made it appear in his essays 
some years before, that there were no images so sublime 
in the brightest of the heathen writers as those with 
which we are furnished in the poetic parts of the Holy 
Scripture; and Rapin, the French critic, dared to pro¬ 
fess the same sentiments, notwithstanding the world of 
poets and critics had so universally and unanimously 
exalted the heathen writers to the sovereignty for so 
many ages. If we would find out the truth in many 
cases, we must dare to dteviate from the long-beaten 
track, and venture to think with a just and unbiassed 
liberty. 

Though it be necessary to guard against the evil in¬ 
fluences of authority, and the prejudices derived thence, 
because it has introduced thousands of errors and mis¬ 
chiefs into the world, yet there are three eminent and 
remarkable cases wherein authority or the sentiments 
of other persons must or will determine the judgment 
and practice of mankind. 

I. Parents are appointed to judge for their children 
in their younger years, and instruct them what they 
should believe, and what they should practise in civil 
and religious life. This is a dictate of nature, and 
doubtless it would have been so in a state of innocence. 
It is impossible that children should be capable of judg¬ 
ing for themselves before their minds are furnished with 
a competent number of ideas, before they are acquainted 
with any principles and rules of just judgment, and be¬ 
fore their reason is grown up to any degrees of matu¬ 
rity and proper exercises upon such subjects. 

I will not say that a child ought to believe nonsense 


USE AND ABUSE OF &.UTHORITT. 


245 


and impossibility because his father bids him; for so far 
as the impossibility appears he cannot believe it: nor 
will I say he ought to assent to all the false opinions of 
his parents, or to practise idolatry and anurder, or mis¬ 
chief, at their command; yet a child krfmvs not any bet¬ 
ter way to find out what he should believe, and what he 
should practise, before he can possibly judge for him¬ 
self, than to run to his parents and receive their senti¬ 
ments and their directions. 

You will say this is hard indeed, that the child of a 
heathen idolator, or a cruel cannibal, is laid under a 
sort of necessity by nature of sinning against the light 
of nature; I grant it is hard indeed, but it is only owing 
to our original fall and apostasy: the law of nature con¬ 
tinues as it w T as in innocence, namely, That a parent 
should judge for his child; but if the parent judges ill, 
the child is greatly exposed by it, through that univer¬ 
sal disorder that is brought into the world by the sin of 
Adam our common father; and from the equity and 
goodness of God, we may reasonably infer, that thfe 
great Judge of all will do right: he will balance the ig¬ 
norance and incapacity of the child with the criminal 
nature of the offence in those puerile instances, and will 
not punish beyond just demerit. 

Besides, what could God, as a Creator, do better for 
children in their minority, than to commit them to the 
care and instruction of parents? None are supposed to 
be so much concerned for the happiness of children as 
their parents are; therefore it is the safest step to happi¬ 
ness, according to the original law of creation, to fol¬ 
low their directions, their parents’ reason acting for 
them before they had reason of their own in proper ex¬ 
ercise; nor indeed is there any better general rule in our 
fallen state by which children are capable of being gov¬ 
erned, though in many particular cases it may lead them 
far astray from virtue and happiness. 

If children by Providence be cast under some happier 
instructions, contrary to their parents’ erroneous opin¬ 
ions, I cannot say it is the duty of such children to fol¬ 
low error when they discern it to be error, because their 
father believes it: what I said before is to be interpreted 
21 * 


246 


USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. 


only of those that are under the immediate care and 
education of their parents, and not yet arrived at years 
capable of examination. I know not how these can be 
freed from receiving the dictates of parental authority 
in their youngiist years, except by immediate or divine 
inspiration. 

It is hard to say at what exact time of life the child is 
exempted from the sovereignty of parental dictates. 
Perhaps it is much juster to suppose that this sovereign¬ 
ty diminishes by degrees, as the child grows in under¬ 
standing and capacity, and is more and more capable 
of exerting his own intellectual powers, than to limit 
this matter by months and years. 

When childhood and youth are so far expired that 
the reasoning faculties are grown up to any just mea¬ 
sures of maturity, it is certain that persons ought to be¬ 
gin to inquire into the reasons of their own faith and 
practice in all the affairs of life and religion: but as rea¬ 
son does not arrive at this power and self-sufficiency in 
any single moment of time, so there is no single mo¬ 
ment when a child should at once cast off all his former 
beliefs and practices; but by degrees, and in slow suc¬ 
cession, he should examine them, as opportunity and 
advantage offer, and either confirm, or doubt of, or 
change them, according to the leading of conscience 
and reason, with all its advantages of information. 

When we are arrived at manly age, there is no per¬ 
son on earth, no set or society of men whatsoever, that 
have power and authority given them by God, the cre¬ 
ator and governor of the world, absolutely to dictate to 
others their opinions or practices in moral and religious 
life. God has given every man reason to judge for 
himself, in higher or lower degrees. Where less is given, 
less will be required. But we are justly chargeable 
with criminal sloth and misimprovement of the talents 
with which our Creator has intrusted us, if we take all 
things for granted which others assert, and believe and 
practise all things which they dictate without due ex¬ 
amination. 

II. Another case wherein authority must govern our 
assent is in many matters of fact. Here we may and 


USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. 


247 


ought to be determined by the declarations or narratives 
of' other men; though I confess this is usually called tes¬ 
timony rather than authority. It is upon this foot that 
every son or daughter among mankind are required to 
believe that such and such persons are their parents, 
for they can never be informed of it but by the dictates 
of others. It is by testimony that we are to believe 
the laws of our country, and to pay all proper deference 
to the prince and to magistrates in subordinate degrees 
of authority, though we did not actually see them cho¬ 
sen, crowned, or invested with their title and character. 
It is by testimony that we are necessitated to believe 
there is such a city as Canterbury or York, though per¬ 
haps we have never been at either; that there are such 
persons as papists at Paris and Rome, and that there 
are many sottish and cruel tenets in their religion. It is 
by testimony that we believe that Christianity, and the 
books of the Bible, have been faithfully delivered down 
to us through many generations; that there was such a 
person as Christ our Saviour, that he wrought miracles, 
and died on the cross, that he rose again and ascended 
to heaven. 

The authority or testimony of men, if they are wise 
and honest, if they had full opportunities and capaci 
ties of knowing the truth, and are free from all suspicion 
of deceit in relating it, ought to sway our assent; espe¬ 
cially when multitudes concur in the same testimony, 
and when there are many other attending circumstan¬ 
ces which raise the proposition which they dictate to 
the degree of moral certainty. 

But in this very case, even in matters of fact and af¬ 
fairs of history, we should not too easily give into all 
the dictates of tradition, and the pompous pretences to 
the testimony of men, till we have fairly examined the 
several things which are necessary to make up credible 
testimony, and to lay a just foundation for our belief. 
There are and have been so many falsehoods imposed 
upon mankind with specious pretences of eye and ear 
witnesses, that should make us wisely cautious and 
justly suspicious of reports, where the concurrent signs 
of truth do not fairly appear, and especially where the 


248 USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. 

matter is of considerable importance. And the less 
probable the fact testified is in itself, the greater evi¬ 
dence justly we may demand of the veracity of that 
testimony on which it claims to be admitted. 

III. The last case wherein authority must govern 
us is when we are called to believe what persons under 
inspiration have dictated to us. This is not properly 
the authority of men, but of God himself; and we are 
obliged to believe what that authority asserts, though 
our reason at present may not be able, any other way, 
to discover the certainty or evidence of the proposition; 
it is enough if our faculty of reason, in its best exercise, 
can discover the divine authority which has proposed it. 
Where doctrines of divine revelation are plainly pub¬ 
lished, together with sufficient proofs of their revela¬ 
tion, all mankind are bound to receive them, though 
they cannot perfectly understand them, for we know 
that God is true, and cannot dictate falsehood. 

But if these pretended dictates are directly contrary 
to the natural faculties of understanding and reason 
which God has given us, we may be well assured these 
dictates were never revealed to us by God himself. 
When persons are really influenced by authority to be¬ 
lieve pretended mysteries in plain opposition to reason, 
and yet pretend reason for what they believe, this is bjut 
a vain amusement. 

There is no reason whatsoever that can prove or es¬ 
tablish any authority so firmly, as to give it power to 
dictate in matters of belief what is contrary to all the 
dictates of our reasonable nature. God himself has 
never given any such revelations: and I think it may be 
said with reverence, he neither can nor will do it, unless 
he change our faculties from what they are at present. 
To tell us we must believe a proposition which is plain¬ 
ly contrary to reason, is to tell us that we must believe 
two ideas are joined, while (if we attend to reason) we 
plainly see and know them to be disjoined. . 

What could ever have established the nonsense of 
transubstantiation in the world, if men had been fixed 
in this great truth, That God gives no revelation con¬ 
tradictory to our own reason? Things may he above 


USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. 


249 


our reason, that is, reason may have but obscure ideas 
of them, or reason may not see the connexion of those 
ideas, or may not know at present the certain and ex¬ 
act manner of reconciling such propositions, either with 
one another or with other rational truths, as I have ex¬ 
plained in some of my logical papers: but when they 
stand directly and plainly against all sense and reason, 
as transubstantiation does, no divine authority can be 
pretended to enforce their belief, and human authority 
is impudent to pretend to it. Yet this human authori¬ 
ty, in the popish countries, has prevailed over millions 
of souls, because they have abandoned their reason; they 
have given up the glory of human nature, to be tram¬ 
pled upon by knaves, and so reduced themselves to the 
condition of brutes. 

It is by this amusement of authority (says a certain 
author) that a horse is taught to obey the words of com¬ 
mand, a dog to fetch and carry, and a man to believe 
inconsistencies and impossibilities. Whips and dun¬ 
geons, fire and the gibbet, and the solemn terrors of 
eternal misery after this life, will persuade weak minds 
to believe against their senses, and in direct contradic¬ 
tion to all their reasoning powers. A parrot is taught 
to tell lies with much more ease and more gentle usagq; 
but none of all these creatures would serve their masters 
at the expense of their liberty, had they but knowledge 
and the just use of reason. 

I have mentioned three classes wherein mankind . 
must or will be determined in their sentiments, by au¬ 
thority; that is the case of children in their minority, in 
regard of the commands of their parents; the case of all 
men, with regard to universal, and complete, and suffi¬ 
cient testimony of matter of fact; and the case of every 
person, with regard to the authority of divine revela¬ 
tion, and of men divinely inspired; and under each of 
these I have given some such limitations and cautions 
as were necessary. I proceed now to mention some 
other cases wherein we ought to pay a great deference 
to the authority and sentiments of others, though we 
are not absolutely concluded and determined by their 
opinions. 


250 


USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY 


I. When we begin to pass out of cyir minority, and 
to judge for ourselves in matters of civil and religious 
life, we ought to pay very great deference to the sen¬ 
timents of our parents, who in the time of our minority 
*vere our natural guides and directors in these matters. 
$o in matters of science, an ignorant and unexperienced 
youth should pay great deference to the opinions of his 
instructors; and though he may justly suspend his judg¬ 
ment in matters which his tutors dictate till he perceives 
sufficient evidence for them, yet neither parents nor tu¬ 
tors should be directly opposed without great and most 
evident reasons, such as constrain the understanding or 
conscience of those concerned. 

II. Persons of years and long experience in human 
affairs, when they give advice in matters of prudence 
or civil conduct, ought to have a considerable deference 
paid to their authority by those that are young and have 
not seen the world, for it is more probable that the elder 
persons are in the right. 

III. In the affairs of practical godliness there should 
be much deference paid to persons of long standing in 
virtue and piety. I confess, in the particular forms and 
ceremonies of religion, there may be as much bigotry 
a»d superstition'among the old as the young; but in 
questions of inward religion, and pure devotion or 
virtue, a man who has been long engaged in the sincere 
practice of these things, is justly presumed to know 
more than a youth with all his ungovemed passions, 
appetites, and prejudices about him. 

IV. Men in their several professions and arts in which 
they have been educated, and in which they have em¬ 
ployed themselves ail their days, must be supposed to 
have a greater knowledge and skill than others; and 
therefore there is due respect to be paid to their judg¬ 
ments in those matters. 

V. In matters of fact, where there is not sufficient testi¬ 
mony to constrain our assent, yet there ought.to be due 
deference paid to the narratives of persons wise and sober, 
according to the degrees of their honesty, skill, and op¬ 
portunity, t^ acquaint themselves therewith. 

I confess, in many of these cases, where the proposi* 


OF MANAGING THE, &C. 251 

tion is a mere matter of speculation, and doth not neces¬ 
sarily draw practice along with it, we may delay our 
assent till better evidence appear; but where the matter 
is of a practical nature, and requires us to act one way 
or another, we ought to pay much deference to authority 
or testimony, and follow such probabilities where we 
have no certainty; for this is the best light we have; and 
surely it is better to follow such sort of guidance, where 
we can have no better, than to wander and fluctuate in 
absolute uncertainty. It is not reasonable to put out 
our candle, and sit still in the dark, because we have 
not the light of sun-beams. 


CHAPTER V. 

OF TREATING AND MANAGING THE PREJUDICES OF MEN.* 

If we had nothing but the reason of men to deal with, 
and that reason were pure and uncorrupted, it would 
then be a matter of no great skill or labour to convince 
another person of common mistakes, or to persuade him 
to assent to plain and obvious truths. But alas! man¬ 
kind stands wrapped round in errors, and entrenched 
in prejudices; and every one of their opinions is support¬ 
ed and guarded by something else besides reason. A 
young bright genius, who has furnished himself with a 
variety of truths and strong arguments, but is yet unac¬ 
quainted with the world, goes forth from the schools, 
like a knight-errant, presuming bravely to vanquish the 
follies of men, and to scatter light and truth through all 
his acquaintance: but he meets with huge giants and 
enchanted castles, strong prepossessions of mind, habits, 
customs, education, authority, interest, together with all 
the various passions of men, armed and obstinate to de¬ 
fend their old opinions; and he is strangely disappointed 
in his generous attempts. He finds now that he must 

* For the nature and causes of prejudices, and for the preventing 
or curing of them in ourselves, see the Doctor’s excellent system of 
Logic, Part ii. Chapter iii. Of the springs of false judgment, or the 
doctrine of prejudices. 



252 


OF MANAGING THE 


not trust merely to the sharpness of his steel, and to the 
strength of his arm, but he must manage the weapons 
of his reason with much dexterity and artifice, with skill 
and address, or he shall never be able to subdue errors, 
and to convince mankind. 

Where prejudices are strong, there are these several 
methods to be practised in order to convince persons of 
their mistakes, and make a way for truth to enter into 
their minds. 

I. By avoiding the power and influence of the preju¬ 
dice without any direct attack upon it: and this is done 
by choosing all the slow, soft, and distant methods of 
proposing your own sentiments and your arguments for 
them, and by degrees leading the person step by step 
into those truths which his prejudices would not bear 
if they were proposed all at once. 

Perhaps your neighbour is under the influence of 
superstition and bigotry in the simplicity of his soul: 
you mpst not immediately run upon him with violence, 
and show him the absurdity or folly of his own opinions, 
though you might be able to set them in a glaring light; 
but you must rather begin at a distance, and establish 
his assent to some familiar and easy propositions which 
have a tendency to refute his mistakes, and to confirm 
the truth; and then silently observe what impression this 
makes upon him, and proceed by slow degrees as he is 
able to bear, and you must carry on the work, perhaps 
at distant seasons of conversation: the tender or diseased 
eye cannot bear a deluge of light at once. 

Therefore we are not to consider our arguments 
merely according to our own notions of their force, and 
from thence expect the immediate conviction of others; 
but we should regard how they are likely to be re¬ 
ceived by the persons we converse with; and thus man¬ 
age our reasoning, as the nurse gives a child drink by 
slow degrees, lest the infant should be choked, or return 
it all back again, if poured in too hastily. If your wine be 
ever so good, and you are ever so liberal in bestowing 
it on your neighbour, yet if his bottle, into which you 
attempt to pour it with freedom, has a narrow mouth, 
you \V ill sooner overset the bottle than fill it with wine. 


PREJUDICES OF MEN. 


253 


Overhastiness and vehemence in arguing is often¬ 
times the effect of pride; it blunts the poignancy of the 
argument, breaks its force, and disappoints the end. If 
you were to convince a person of the falsehood of the 
doctrine of transubstantiation, and you take up the con¬ 
secrated bread before him, and say—“You may see, and 
taste, and feel, this is nothing but bread; therefore while 
you assert that God commands you to believe it is not 
bread, you most wickedly accuse God of commanding 
you to tell a lie.” This sort of language would only 
raise the indignation of the person against you, instead 
of making any impressions upon him. He will not so 
much as think at all on the arguments you have brought, 
but he rages at you as a profane wretch, setting up your 
sense and reason above sacred authority; so that though 
what you affirm is a truth of great evidence, yet you lose 
the benefit of your whole argument by an ill manage¬ 
ment, and the unseasonable use of it. 

II. We may expressly allow and indulge those preju¬ 
dices for a season which seem to stand against the trijth, 
and endeavour to introduce the truth by degrees, while 
those prejudices are expressly allowed, till by degrees 
the advanced truth may of itself wear out the prejudice. 
Thus God himself dealt with his own people the Jews 
after the resurrection of Christ; for though from the 
following days of Pentecost, when the Gospel was pro¬ 
claimed and confirmed at Jerusalem, the Jewish cere¬ 
monies began to be void and ineffectual for any divine 
purpose, yet the Jews who received Christ the Messiah 
were permitted to circumcise their children, and to prac¬ 
tise many Levitical forms, till that constitution, which 
then waxed old, should in time vanish away. 

Where the prejudices of mankind cannot be conquered 
at once, but they will rise up in arms against the evi¬ 
dence of truth, there we must make some allowances, 
and yield to them for the present, as far as we can safely 
do it without real injury to truth: and if we would have 
any success in our endeavours to convince the world, 
we must practise this complaisance for the benefit of 
mankind. 

Take a student who has deeply imbibed the princi- 

22 


254 


OP MANAGING THE 


pies of the Peripatetics, and imagines certain imma¬ 
terial beings called substantial forms to inhabit every 
herb, flower, mineral, metal, fire, water, &c. and to be 
the spring of all its properties and operations; or take a 
Platonist, who believes an anima mundi, a universal 
soul of the world to pervade all bodiesj to act in and by 
them according to their nature, and indeed to give them 
their nature and their special powers; perhaps it may 
be very hard to convince these persons by argument, 
and constrain them to yield up these fancies. Well 
then, let the one believe his universal soul, and the other 
go on with his notion of substantial forms, and at the 
same time teach them how by certain original laws of 
motion, and the various sizes, shapes, and situations of 
the parts of matter, allowing a continued divine con¬ 
course in and with all, the several appearances in nature 
may be solved, and thq variety of effects produced, ac¬ 
cording to the corpuscular philosophy improved by 
Descartes, Mr. Boyle, and Sir Isaac Newton; and when 
they have attained a degree of skill in this science, they 
will see these airy notions of theirs, these imaginary pow 
ers, to be so useless and unnecessary, that they will drop 
them of their own accord: the Peripatetic forms will 
vanish from the mind like a dream, and the Platonic 
soul of the world will expire. 

Or suppose a young philosopher, under a powerful 
persuasion that there is nothing but what has three 
dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness, and conse¬ 
quently that every finite being has a figure or shape 
(for shape is but the term and boundary of dimension:) 
suppose this person, through the long prejudices of sense 
and imagination, cannot be easily brought to conceive 
of a spirit or a thinking being without shape and dimen¬ 
sions; let him then continuo to conceive a spirit with 
dimensions; but be sure in all his conceptions to retain 
the idea of cogitation, or a power of thinking, and thus 
proceed to philosophize upon the subject. Perhaps in a 
little time he will find that length, breadth,* and shape 
have no share in any of the actions of a spirit, and that 
he can manifest all the properties and relations of such 
a being, with all its operations of sensation, volition, 


PREJUDICES OF MEN. 


255 


&c. to be as well performed without the use of this sup 
posed shape or these dimensions; and that all these 
operations and these attributes may be ascribed to a 
spirit considered merely as a power of thinking. And 
when he further conceives that God, the infinite Spirit, 
is an almighty, self-consistent, thinking power, without 
shape and dimensions of length, breadth, and depth, he 
may then suppose the. human spirit may be an inferior 
self-subsisting power of thought; and he may be inclined 
to drop the ideas of dimension and figure by degrees, 
when he sees and is convinced they do nothing toward 
thinking, nor are they necessary to assist or explain the 
operations or properties of a spirit. 

I may give another instance of the same practice, 
where there is a prejudicate fondness of particular words 
and phrases. Suppose a man is educated in an unhap¬ 
py form of speech, whereby he explains some great doc¬ 
trine of the gospel, and by the means of this phrase he 
has imbibed a very false idea of that doctrine: yet he is 
so bigoted to his form of words, that he imagines if 
those words are omitted, the doctrine is lost. Now if I 
cannot possibly persuade him to part with his improper 
terms, I will indulge them a little, and try to explain 
them in a scriptural sense, rather than let him go on in his 
mistaken ideas. 

Credonius believes that Christ descended into hell: I 
think the word hell , as now commonly understood, is 
very improper here; but since, the bulk of Christians, 
and Credonius amongst them, will by no means part 
with the word out of their English creed, I will explain 
the word hell to signify the state of the dead , or the sepa¬ 
rate state of souls; and thus lead my friend into more 
just ideas of the truth, namely, that the soul of Christ 
existed three days in the state of separation from his 
body, or was in the invisible world, which might be ori¬ 
ginally called hell in English, as well as hades in Greek. 

Anilla has been bred a pap st all her days, and though 
she does not know much of religion, yet she resolves 
never to part from the"Roman catholic faith, and is ob¬ 
stinately bent against a change. Now I cannot think it 
unlawful to teach her the true Christian, that is, the 


256 


OP MANAGING THE 


protestant religion, out of the Epistle to the Romans, 
and show her that the same doctrine is contained in the 
catholic epistles of St. Peter, James, and Jude: and thus 
let her live and die a good Christian in the belief of the 
religion I teach her out of the New Testament, whije 
she imagines she is a Roman catholic still, because she 
finds the doctrines she is taught in the catholic epistles 
and in that to the Romans. 

I grant it is most proper there should be different 
words (as far as possible) applied to different ideas; and 
this rule should never be dispensed with, if we had to 
do only with the reason of mankind; but their various 
prejudices and zeal for some party phrases sometimes 
make it necessary that we should lead them into truth 
under the covert of their own beloved forms of speech, 
rather than permit them to live and die obstinate and 
unconvincible in any dangerous mistake: whereas an 
attempt to deprive them of their old established words 
would raise such a tumult within them, as to render their 
conviction hopeless. 

III. Sometimes we may make use of the very preju¬ 
dices under which a person labours in order to convince 
him of some particular truth, and argue with him upon 
his own professed principles as though they were true. 
This is called argumentum ad hominem , and is another 
way of dealing with the prejudices of men. 

Suppose a Jew lies sick of a fever, and is forbid flesh 
by his physician; but hearing that rabbits were provided 
for the dinner of the family, desired earnestly to eat of 
them; and suppose he became impatient because his 
physician did not permit him, and he insisted upon it 
that it could do him no hurt. Surely rather than let 
him persist in that fancy and that desire, to the danger 
of his life, 1 would tell him that those animals were 
^strangled, which sort of food was forbidden by the Jew¬ 
ish law, though I myself may believe that law is now 
abolished. 

In the same manner was Tenerilla persuaded to let 
Damon her husband prosecute a thief who broke open 
their house on a Sunday. At first she abhorred the 
thoughts of it, and refused it utterly., because, if the 


PREJUDICES OF MEN. 


251 


thief were condemned, according to the English law he 
must be hanged, whereas (said she) the law of God, in 
the writings of Moses, doth not appoint death to be the 
punishment of such criminals, but tells us, that a thief 
should be sold for his theft.—Exod. xxii. 3. But when 
Damon could no otherwise convince her that the thief 
ought to be prosecuted, he put her in mind that the 
theft was committed on Sunday morning: now the same 
law of Moses requires that the sabbath-breaker shall 
surely be put to death.—Exod. xxxi. 15; Numb. xv. 35. 
This argument prevailed with Tcnerilla, and she con¬ 
sented to the prosecution. 

Encrates used the same means ot conviction when 
he saw a Mahometan drink wine to excess, and heard 
him maintain the lawfulness and pleasure of drunken¬ 
ness; Encrates reminded him that his own prophet Ma¬ 
homet had utterly forbidden all wine to his followers, 
and the good man restrained his vicious appetite by this 
superstition, when he could no otherwise convince him 
that drunkenness was unlawful, nor withhold him from 
excess. 

When we find any person obstinately persisting in a 
mistake in opposition to all reason, especially if the 
mistake be very injurious or pernicious, and we know 
this person will hearken to the sentiment or authority 
of some favourite name, it is needful sometimes to use 
the opinion and authority of that favourite person, since 
that is likely to be regarded much more than reason. I 
confess I am almost ashamed to speak of using any influ¬ 
ence of authority while I would teach the art of reasoning. 
But in some cases it is better that poor, silly, perverse, 
obstinate creatures should be persuaded to judge and act 
aright, by a veneration for the sense of others, than to 
be left to wander in pernicious errors, and continue 
deaf to all argument, and blind to all evidence. They 
are but children of a larger size; and since they persist 
all their lives in their minority, and reject all true rea¬ 
soning, surely we may try to persuade them to practise 
what is for their own interest by such childish reasons 
as they will hearken to: we may overawe them from 
pursuing their own ruin by the terrors of a solemn sha- 
22 * 


258 


OF MANAGING THE 


dow, or allure them by a sugar-plum to their own hap¬ 
piness. 

But after all, we must conclude that wheresoever it 
can be done, it is best to remove and root out those 
prejudices which obstruct the entrance of truth into the 
mind, rather than to palliate, humour, or indulge them; 
and sometimes this must necessarily be done before you 
can make a person part with some beloved error, and 
lead him into better sentiments. 

Suppose you would convince a gamester that gaming 
is not a lawful calling or business of life to maintain 
one’s self by it, and you make use of this argument, 
namely, “ That which doth not admit us to ask the 
blessing of God that we may get gain by it, cannot be 
a lawful employment; but we cannot ask the blessing of 
God on gaming, therefore,” &c. The minor is proved 
thus: “We cannot prav that our neighbour may lose; 
this is contrary to the rule of seeking our neighbour’s 
welfare, and loving him as ourselves; this is wishing 
mischief to our neighbour. But in gaming we can gain 
but just so rfiucli as our neighbour loses: therefore in 
gaming we cannot pray for the blessing of God that we 
may gain by it.” 

Perhaps the gamester shrugs and winces, turns and 
twists the argument every way, but he cannot fairly 
answer it, yet he will patch up an answer to satisfy 
himself, and will never yieid to the conviction, because 
he feels so much of the sweet influence of gaming, 
either toward the gratification of his avarice, or the sup¬ 
port of his expenses. Thus he is under a strong preju¬ 
dice in favour of it, and is not easily convinced. 

-Your first work therefore must be to lead him by de¬ 
grees to separate the thoughts of his own interest from 
the argument, and show him that our own temporal in¬ 
terests, our livelihood, or our loss, hath nothing to do to 
determine this point in opposition to the plain reason 
of things, and that he ought to put that consideration 
quite out of the question, if he would be honest and 
sincere in his search after truth or duty; and that he 
must be contented to hearken to the voice of reason 
and truth, even though it should run counter to his 


PREJUDICES OF MEN. 


259 


secular interest. When this is done, then an argument 
may carry some weight or force with it towards his con¬ 
viction. 

In like manner if the question were, whether Matris- 
sa ought to expose herself and her other children to pov¬ 
erty and misery in order to support the extravagances 
of a favourite son? Perhaps the mother can hear no ar¬ 
gument against it; she feels no conviction in the most 
cogent reasonings, so close do her fond prejudices stick 
to her heart. The first business here is to remove this 
prejudice. Ask her therefore, Whether it is not a pa¬ 
rent’s duty to lave all her children so as to provide for 
their welfare? Whether duty to God and her family 
ought not to regulate her love to a favourite? Whether 
her neighbour Floris did well in dressing up her daugh¬ 
ters with expensive gaudery, and neglecting the educa¬ 
tion of her son till she saw his ruin? Perhaps by this 
method she may be brought to see that peculiar fond¬ 
ness for one child should have no weight or force in de¬ 
termining the judgment in opposition to plain duty: and 
she may then give herself up to conviction in her own 
case, and to the evidence of truth, and thus correct her 
mistaken practice. 

Suppose you would convert Rominda from popery, 
and you set all the errors, absurdities, and superstitions 
of that church before her in the most glaring evidence: 
she holds them fast still, and cannot part with them, 
for she hath a most sacred reverence for the faith and 
the church of her ancestors, and cannot imagine that 
they were in the wrong. The first labour must be 
therefore to convince her that our ancestors were falli¬ 
ble creatures; that we may part with their faith without 
any dishonour done to them; that all persons must 
choose their religion for themselves; that we must an¬ 
swer for ourselves in the gre.at day of judgment, and 
not we for our parents, nor they for us; that Christiani¬ 
ty itself had never been received by her ancestors in 
this nation, if they had persisted always in the religion 
of their parents, for they were all heathens. And when 
she has by these methods of reasoning been persuaded 
that she is not bound always to cleave to the religion 


260 


OF INSTRUCTION 


of her parents, she may then receivt an easier convic¬ 
tion of the errors of Rome.* 


CHAPTER VI. 

OF INSTRUCTION BY PREACHING. 

Section I. 

Wisdom better than Learning in the Pulpit. , 

Tyro is a young preacher just come from the schools 
of logic and divinity, and advanced to the pulpit; he 
was counted a smart youngster in the academy for ana¬ 
lysing a proposition, and is full even to the brim with 
the terms of his art in learning. When he has read 
his text, after a short flourish of introduction, he tells 
you in how many senses the chief word is taken, first 
among Greek heathen writers, and then in the New 
Testament; he cites all the chapters and verses exactly, 
and endeavours to make you understand many a text 
before he comes to let you know fully what he means 
by his own. 

Pie finds these things at large in the critics which he 
has consulted, where this sort of work is necessary and 
beautiful, and therefore he imagines it will become his 
sermon well. Then he informs you very learnedly of 
the various false expositions which have been given by 
divines and commentators on this part of scripture, and 

* Bat perhaps of all these different methods of curing prejudices 
none can be practised with greater pleasure to a wise and good 
man, or with greater success, where success is most desirable, than 
attempting to turn the attention of well meaning people from some 
point in which prejudice prevails, to some other of greater impor¬ 
tance, and fixing their thoughts and heart on some great truth which 
they allow, and which leads into consequences contrary to some other 
notion which they espouse and retain. By this means they may 
be led to forget their errors while attentive to opposite truth, and in 
proportion to the degree in w r hich their minds open, and their tem¬ 
pers grow more generous and virtuous, may be induced to resign it 
And surely nothing can give a benevolent mind more satisfaction 
than to improve his neighbour in knowledge and in goodness a* the 
same time. 



BY PREACHING. 


261 


it may be the reasons of each of them too; and I e re¬ 
futes them with much zeal and contempt. Having thus 
cleared his way, he fixes upon the exposition which bis 
judgment best approves, and dwells, generally, five or 
ten minutes upon the arguments to confirm it: and this 
he does not only in texts of darkness and difficulty, but 
even when scarce a child could doubt of his meaning. 

This grammatical exercise being performed, he applies 
himself to his logic. The text is divided and subdivi¬ 
ded into many little pieces; he points you precisely to 
the subject and predicate, brings you acquainted with 
the agent and the object, shows you all the properties 
and the accidents which attend it, and would fain make 
you understand the matter and form of it as well as he 
does himself. When he has thus done, two-thirds of 
the hour is spent, and his hearers are quite tired; then 
he begins to draw near to his doctrine or grand theme 
of discourse, and having told the audience with great 
formality and exactness in what method he shall man¬ 
age it, he names you one or two particulars under the 
first general head; and by this time finds it necessary to 
add, “ He intended indeed to have been larger in the il¬ 
lustration of his subject, and he should have given you 
some reasons for the doctrine, but he is sorry that he is 
prevented: and then he designed also to have brought , 
it down to the conscience of every man by a warm ad¬ 
dress, but his time being gone he must break off.” He 
hurries over a hint or two which should have been 
wrought up into exhortation or instruction, but all in 
great haste, and thus concludes his work. The obsti¬ 
nate and careless sinner goes away unawakened, un¬ 
convinced; and the mourning soul departs uncomfort¬ 
ed: the unbeliever is not led to faith in the gospel, nor 
the immoral wretch to hate or forsake his iniquities: the 
hypocrite and the man of sincerity are both unedified, 
because the preacher had not time. In shortj he hath fin¬ 
ished his work, and hath done nothing. 

When I hear this man preach it brings to my remem¬ 
brance the account which I have heard concerning the 
Czar of Muscovy, the first time his army besieged a 
town in Livonia: he was then just come from his trav- 


262 


OF INSTRUCTION 


els in Great Britain, where he and his ministers of state 
had learned the mathematics of an old acquaintance of 
mine: the Czar took great care to begin the siege in 
form; he drew all the lines of circumvallation and con- 
travallation according to the rules of art; but he was so 
tedious and so exact in these mathematical performan¬ 
ces, that the season was spent, he was forced to break 
up the siege, and retire without any execution done 
upon the town. 

Ergates is another sort of preacher, a workman that 
need not be ashamed: he had in his younger days but 
few of these learned vanities, and age and experience 
have now worn them all off. He preaches like a man 
who watches for our souls, as one that must give an 
account; he passes over lesser matters with speed, and 
pursues his great design, namely, to save himself and 
them that hear him, 1 Tim. iv. 16, and by following 
this advice of St. Paul, he happily complies with that 
great and natural rule of Horace, always to make haste 
towards the most valuable end:— 

Semper ad even turn festinat.— 

He never affects to choose a very obscure text, lest he 
should waste too much of the hour in explaining the lit- ✓ 
eral sense of it: he reserves all those obscurities till they 
come in course at his seasons of public exposition. For 
it is his opinion, that preaching the gospel for the salva¬ 
tion of men carries in it a little different idea from a 
learned and critical exposition of the difficult texts of 
scripture. 

He knows well how to use his logic in his composi¬ 
tions; but he calls no part of the words by its logical 
name, if there be any vulgar name that answers it: read¬ 
ing and meditation have furnished him with extensive 
views of his subject, and his own good sense hath taught 
him to give sufficient reasons for every thing ho asserts; 
but ho never uses one of them till a proof is needful. 
He is acquainted with the mistaken glosses of exposi¬ 
tors, but he thinks it needless to acquaint his hearers 
with them, unless there be evident danger that they 
might run into the same mistake. He understands very 


BY PREACHING. 


263 


well what his subject is not, as well as what it is; but 
when he would explain it to you he never says, first, 
negatively, unless some remarkable error is at hand, and 
which his hearers may easily fall into, for want of such 
a caution. . 

Thus, in five or ten minutes at the most, he makes 
his way plain to the proposition or theme on whicli he 
designs to discourse; and being so wise as to know well 
what to say and what to leave out, he proportions every 
part of his work to his time; he enlarges a little upon 
the subject by way of illustration, till the truth becomes 
evident and intelligible to the weakest of his hearers; 
then he confirms the point with a few convincing argu¬ 
ments where the matter requires it, and makes haste to 
turn the doctrine into use and improvement. Thus the 
ignorant are instructed, and the growing Christians are 
established and improved: the stupid sinner is loudly 
awakened, and the mournmg soul receives consolation: 
the unbeliever is led to trust in Christ and his Gospel, 
and the impenitent and immoral are convinced and sof¬ 
tened, are melted and reformed. The inward voico of 
the holy Spirit joins with the voice of the minister; the 
good man and the hypocrite have their proper portions 
assigned them; and the work of the Lord prospers in his 
hand. 

This is the usual course and manner of his ministry; 
this method being natural, plain, and easy, he casts 
many of his discourses into this form; but he is no slave 
to forms and methods of any kind; he makes the nature 
of his subject, and the necessity of his hearers, the great 
rule to direct hitn in what method he shall choose in 
every sermon, that he may the better enlighten, con¬ 
vince, and persuade. Ergates well knows that where 
the subject itself is entirely practical, he has no need 
of the formality of long uses and exhortations: he knows 
that practice is the chief design of doctrine; therefore 
he bestows most of his labour upon this part of his of¬ 
fice, and intermingles much of the pathetic under every 
particular. Yet he wisely observes the special dangers 
of his flock, and the errors of the times he lives in, and 
now and then (though \ ery seldom) he thinks it neces- 


264 


OF INSTRUCTION 


Gary to spend almost a whole discourse in mere doctri¬ 
nal articles.—Upon such an occasion he thinks it proper 
to take up a little larger part of his hour in explaining 
and confirming the sense of his text, and brings it down 
to the understanding of a child. 

At another time perhaps he particularly designs to 
entertain the few learned and polite among his auditors, 
and that with this view, that he may ingratiate his dis¬ 
courses with their ears, and may so far gratify their cu¬ 
riosity in this part of his sermon as to give an easier en¬ 
trance for the more plain, necessary, and important parts 
of it into their hearts. Then he aims at, and he reaches 
the sublime, and furnishes out an entertainment for 
the finest taste; but he scarce ever finishes his sermon 
without compassion to the unlearned, and an address 
that may reach their consciences with words of salvation. 

I have observed him sometimes, after a learned dis¬ 
course, come down from the pulpit as a man ashamed 
and quite out of countenance: he has blushed, and com¬ 
plained to his intimate friends, lest he should be thought 
to have preached himself, and not Christ Jesus his Lord: 
he has been ready to wish he had entertained the audi¬ 
ence in a more unlearned manner, and on a more vul¬ 
gar subject, lest the servants and the labourers and 
tradesmen there should reap no advantage to their souls, 
and the important hour of worship should be lost as to 
their improvement. Well he knows, and keeps it upon 
his heart, that the middle and the lower ranks of man¬ 
kind, and people of unlettered character, make up the 
greater part of the assembly; therefore he is ever seek¬ 
ing how to adapt his thoughts and his language, and far 
the greater part of all his ministrations, to the instruc¬ 
tion and profit of persons of common rank and capacity; 
it is in the midst of these that he hopes to find his tri¬ 
umph, his joy, and crown, in the last great day, for not 
many wise, not many noble are called. 

There is so much spirit and beauty in his common 
conversation, that it is sought and desired by the ingeni¬ 
ous men of his age; but he carries a severe guard of 
piety always about him, that tempers the pleasant ail 
of his discourse, even in his brightest and freest hours; 


BY PREACHING. 


265 


and before he leaves the place (if possible) he will.leave 
something of the savour of heaven there: in the parlour 
he carries on the design of the pulpit, but in so elegant 
a manner,’ that it charms the company, and gives not 
the least occasion for censure. 

His polite acquaintance will sometimes rally him for 
talking so plainly in his sermons, and sinking his good 
sense to so low a level: but Ergates is bold to tell the 
gayest of them,—“ Our public business, my friend, is 
chiefly with the weak and the ignorant; that is, the bulk 
of mankind: The poor receive the gospel: The mechan¬ 
ics and day-labourers, the women and the children of 
my assembly have souls to be saved: I will imitate my 
blessed Redeemer in preaching the gospel to the poor, 
and learn of St. Paul to become all things to all men, 
that I may win souls, and lead many sinners to heaven 
by repentance, faith, and holiness.” 

Sect. II. A Branching Sermon. 

I have alwaj'S thought it a mistake in the preacher* 
to mince his text or his subject too small, by a great 
number of subdivisions; for it occasions great confusion 
to the understandings of the unlearned. Where a man 
divides his matter into more general, less general, spe¬ 
cial, and more particular heads, he is under a necessity 
sometimes of saying, firstly or secondly, two or three 
times together, which the learned may observe; but the 
greater part of the auditory, not knowing the analysis, 
cannot so much as take it into their minds, and much 
less treasure up in'their memories, in a just and regular 
order; and when such hearers are desired to give some 
account of the sermon, they throw the thirdlies and 
secondlies into heaps, and make very confused work in 
a rehearsal, by intermingling the general and the spe¬ 
cial heads. In writing a large discourse this is much 
more tolerable,* but in preaching it is less profitable and 
more intricate and offensive. 

' * Especially as words may be. used to number the generals and fig¬ 

ures of different kinds and forms'to marshal the primary or secon¬ 
dary ranks of pnrticulars under them. 

23 


OF INSTRUCT ON 


266 

It is as vain an affectation also to draw out a long 
rank of particulars in the same sermon under any one 
general, and run up the number of them to eighteenthly 
and seven-and-twentiethly. Men that take delight in 
this sort of work, will cut out all their senses into 
shreds; and every thing that they can say upon any topic 
shall make a new particular. 

This sort of folly and mistaken conduct appears 
weekly in Polyramus’s lectures, and renders all his dis¬ 
courses lean and insipid.' Whether it proceeds from a 
mere barrenness of thought and native dryness of soul, 
that he is not able to vary his matter and to amplify 
beyond the formal topics of analysis; or whether it ari¬ 
ses from affectation of such a way of talking, is hard to 
say: but it is certain that the chief part of his auditory 
are not overmuch profited or pleased. When I sit un¬ 
der his preaching, I fancy myself brought into the val¬ 
ley of Ezekiel’s vision; it was full of bones, and behold, 
there were very many in the valley, and lo, they were 
very dry.—Ezek. xxxvii. 1, 2. 

It is the Variety of enlargement upon a few proper 
heads that clothes the dry bones with flesh, and ani¬ 
mates them with blood and spirits: it is this that colours the 
discourse, makes it warm and strong, and renders the 
divine~propositions bright and persuasive; it is this brings 
down the doctrine or the duty to the understanding or 
conscience of the whole auditory, and commands the 
natural affections into the interest of the gospel: in 
short, it is this that, under the influence of the Holy 
Spirit, gives life and force, beauty and success to a ser¬ 
mon, and provides food for souls. A single rose-bush, 
or a dwarf-pear, with all their leaves, flowers, and fruit 
about them, have more beauty and spirit in themselves, 
and yield more food and pleasure to mankind, than the 
innumerable branches, boughs, and twigs of a long 
hedge of thorns. The fruit will feed the hungry, and 
the flower will refresh the fainting, which is more than 
can be said of the thickest oak in Bashan, when it has 
lost its vital juice; it may spread its limbs indeed far and 
wide, but they are naked, withered, and sapless. 


BY PREACHING. 


267 


Sect. III. The Harangue. 

Is it not possible to forsake one extreme without run¬ 
ning into a worse? Is there no medium between a ser¬ 
mon made up of sixty dry particulars, and a long loose 
declamation without any distinction of the parts of it? 
Must the preacher divide his work by the breaks of a 
minute-watch, or let it run on incessant to the last word, 
like the flowing stream of the hour-glass that measures 
his divinity? Surely Fluvio preaches as though he knew 
no medium; and having taken a disgust heretofore at 
one of Polyramus’s lectures, he resolved his discourses 
should have no distinction of particulars in them. His 
language flows smoothly in a long connexion of periods, 
and glides over the ear like a rivulet of oil over polished 
marble, and, like that too, leaves no trace behind it. 
The attention is detained in a gentle pleasure, and (to 
say the best thing possible of it) the hearer is soothed 
into something like divine delight; but he can give the 
inquiring friend scarce any account of what it was that' 
pleased him. He retains a faint idea of the sweetness, 
but has forgot the sense. 

Tell me, Fluvio, is this the most effectual way to in¬ 
struct ignorant creatures in the several articles of faith, 
and the various duties of the Christian life? Will such a 
long uniform flow of language imprint all the distinct 
parts of Christian knowledge on the mind in their best 
form and order! Do you find such a gentle and gliding 
stream of words most powerful to call up the souls of 
sinners from their dangerous or fatal lethargy? Will this 
indolent and moveless species of oratory make a thought¬ 
less wretch attend to matters of infinite moment? Can a 
long purling sound awaken a sleepy conscience, and 
give a perishing sinner just notices of his dreadful ha¬ 
zard? Can it furnish his understanding and his memory 
with all the awful and tremendous topics of our religion, 
when it scarce ever leaves any distinct impression of 
one of them on his soul? Can you make the arrow wound 
where it will not stick? Where all the discourse vanishes 
from the remembrance, can you suppose the soul to 
be profited or enriched? When you brush over the clo- 


268 


OP INSTRUCTION 


sed eyelids with a feather, did you ever find it give 
light to the blind: Have any of your soft harangues, 
your continued threads of silken eloquence, ever 
raised the dead? I fear your whole aim is to talk over 
the appointed number of minutes upon the subject, or 
to practise a little upon the gentler passions, without 
any concern how to give the understanding its due im- 
m provement, or to furnish the memory with any lasting 
treasure, or to make a knowing and a religious Christian. 

Ask old Wheatfield, the rich farmer, ask Plowdown, 
your neighbour, or any of his family, who have sat all 
their lives under your ministry, what they know of the 
common truths of religion, or of the special articles of 
Christianity? Desire them to tell you what the gospel is, 
or what is salvation? what are their duties toward God, 
or what they mean by religion? who is Jesus Christ, or 
what is the meaning of his atonement, or redemption 
by his blood? Perhaps you will tell me yourself, that 
you have very seldom entertained them with these sub¬ 
jects. Well, inquire of them then, what is heaven; 
which is the way to obtain it; or what hope they have 
of dwelling there? Entreat them to tell you wherein 
they have profited as to holiness of heart and life, or 
fitness for death? They will soon make it appear, by 
their awkward answers, that they understood very lit¬ 
tle of all your fins discourses, and those of your prede¬ 
cessor; and have made but wretched improvement of 
forty years attendance at church. They have now and 
then been pleased perhaps with the music of your voice, 
as with the sound of a sweet instrument, and they mis¬ 
took that for devotion; but their heads are dark still, and 
their hearts earthly; they are mere heathens with a 
Christian name, and know little more of God than their 
yokes of oxen. In short, Polyramus’s auditors have 
some confusion in their knowledge, but Fluvio’s hear¬ 
ers have scarce any knowledge at all. 

But you will tell me your discourses are not all made 
up of harangue; your design is sometimes to inform the 
mind by a train of well connected reasonings, and that 
• all y Dur paragraphs, in their long order, prove and sup¬ 
port each other; and though you do not distinguish 


BY PREACHING. 


269 


your discourse into particulars, yet you have kept some 
invisible ljiethod all the way; and by some artificial gra¬ 
dations you have brought ycur sermon down to the 
concluding sentence. 

It may be so sometimes, and I will acknowledge it; 
but believe me, Fluvio, this artificial and invisible method 
carries darkness with it instead of light; nor is it by 
any means a proper way to instruct the vulgar, that is, 
the bulk of your auditory: their souls are not capable 
of so wide a stretch, as to take in the whole chain of 
your long-connected consequences; you talk reason and 
religion to them in ’'ain, if you do not make the argu¬ 
ment so short as to come within their grasp, and give a 
frequent rest for their thoughts; you must break the 
bread of life into pieces to feed children with it, and 
part your discourses into distinct propositions to give the 
ignorant a plain scheme of any one doctrine, and enable 
them to comprehend or retain it. 

Every day gives us experiments to confirm what I 
say, and to encourage ministers to divide their sermons 
into several distinct heads of discourse. Myrtilla, a 
little creature of nine years old, was at church twice 
yesterday: in the morning the preacher entertained his 
audience with a running oration, and the child could 
give her parents no other account of it, but that he 
talked smoothly and sweetly about virtue and heaven. 

It was Ergates’ lot to fulfil the service of the afternoon; 
he is an excellent preacher, both for the wise and for 
the unwise: in the evening Myrtilla very prettily enter¬ 
tained her mother with a repetition of the most consid¬ 
erable parts of the sermon; for “ Here (said she) I can 
fix my thoughts upon first, secondly, and thirdly; upon " 
the doctrine, the reasons, and the inferences; and I know 
what I must try to remember, and repeat it when my 
friends shall ask me; but as for the morning sermon, I 
could do nothing but hear it, for I could not tell what I 
should get by heait.” 

This manner of talking in a loose harangue has not 
only injured our pupils, but it makes several essays and 
treatises that are written now-a-days less capable of 
improving the know ledge or enriching the memory of 

23 * 


OF INSTRUCTION 



the reader I will easily grant, that where the wh^le 
discourse reaches not beyond a few pages, there is no 
necessity for the formal proposal of the several parts 
before you handle each of them distinctly; nor is there 
need of such a set method: the 'unlearned and narrow 
understanding can take an easy view of the whole, 
without the author’s pointing to the several parts. But 
where the essay is prolonged to a greater extent, confu¬ 
sion grows upon the reader almost at every page, with¬ 
out some scheme or method of successive heads in the 
discourse to direct the mind and aid the memory. 

If it be answered here, That neither such treatises 
nor sermons are a mere heap, for there is a just method 
observed in the composure, and the subjects are ranked 
in a proper order, it is easy to reply, That this method 
is so concealed, that a common reader or hearer can 
never find it; and you must suppose every one that pe¬ 
ruses such a book, and much more that attends such a 
discourse, to have some good knowledge of the art of 
logic before he can distinguish the various parts and 
branches, the connexions and transitions of it. To an 
unlearned eye or ear it appears a mere heap of good 
things, without any method, form, or order; and if you 
tell your young friends they should get it into their 
heads and hearts, they know not how to set about it. 

If we inquire how it comes to pass that our modern 
ingenious writers should affect this manner, I know no 
juster reason to give for it, than a humorous and wanton 
contempt of the customs and preaching of our forefa¬ 
thers: a sensible disgust taken at some of their mistakes 
^and ill conduct at first tempted a vain generation into 
the contrary extreme near sixty years ago; and now, 
even to this day, it continues too much in fashion, so 
that the wise, as well as the weak, are ashamed to 
oppose it, and are borne down with the current. 

Our fathers formed their sermons much, upon the 
model of doctrine, reason, and use: and perhaps there 
is no one method of more universal service, and more 
easily applicable to most subjects, though il is not neces¬ 
sary or proper in every discourse; but the very names 
of doctrine and use are become now-a-days such stale and 


BY PREACHING. 


271 


old fashioned things, that a modish preacher is quite 
ashamed of them; nor can a modish hearer bear the 
sound of those syllables. A direct and distinct address 
to the consciences of saints and sinners must not be 
named or mentioned, though these terms are scriptural, 
lest it should be hissed out of the church like the garb 
of a roundhead or a puritan. 

Some of our fathers have multiplied their particulars 
under one single head of discourse, and run up the tale 
of them to sixteen or seventeen. Culpable indeed, and 
too numerous! But in opposition to this extreme, we 
are almost ashamed in our age to say thirdly; and all 
fourthlies and fifthlies are very unfashionable words. 

Our fathers made too great account of the sciences 
of logic and metaphysics, and the formalities of defini¬ 
tion and division, syllogism and method, when they 
brought them so often into the pulpit; but we hold those 
arts so much in contempt and defiance, that we had 
rather talk a whole hour without order, and without 
edification, than be suspected of using logic or method 
in our discourses. 

Some of our fathers neglected politeness perhaps too 
much, and indulged a coarseness of style, and a rough 
or awkward pronunciation; but we have such a value 
for elegancy, and so nice a taste for what we call polite, 
that we dare not spoil the cadence of a period to quote 
a text of Scripture in it, nor disturb the harmony of 
our sentences to number or to name the heads of our 
discourse. And for this reason I have heard it hinted, 
that the name of Christ has been banished out of polite 
sermons, because it is a monosyllable of so many conso¬ 
nants and so harsh a sound. 

But after all, our fathers, with all their defects, and 
with all their weaknesses, preached the gospel of Christ 
to the sensible instruction of whole parishes, to the con¬ 
version of sinners from the errors of their way, and the 
salvation of multitudes of souls. But it has been the 
late complaint of Dr. Edwards, and other worthy sons 
of the established church, that in too many pulpits now- 
a-days there are only heard some smooth declamations, 
while the hearers that were ignorant of the gospel 


272 


OF WRITING CONTROVERSIES. 


abide still without knowledge, and the profane sinners 
are profane still. O that divine graee would descend* 
and reform what is amiss in all the sanctuaries of the 
nation!* 


CHAPTER VII. 

OF WRITING BOOKS FOR THE PUBLIC. 

In the explication and distinction of words and things 
by definition and description, in the division of things 
into their several parts, and in the distribution of things 
into their several kinds, be sure to observe a just me¬ 
dium. We must not always explain and distinguish, 
define, divide, and distribute; nor must we always omit 
it: sometimes it is useless and impertinent, sometimes it 
is proper and necessary. There is confusion brought 
into our argument and discourse by too many or by too 
few of these. One author plunges his reader into the 
midst of things without due explication of them; another 
jumbles together, without distinction, all those ideas 
which have any likeness; a third is fond of explaining 
every word, and coining distinctions between ideas which 
have little or no difference; but each of these runs into 
extremes, for all these practices are equal hinderances 
to clear, just, and useful knowledge. It is not a long 
train of rules, but observation and good judgment, can 
teach us when to explain, define, and divide, and when 
to omit it. 

In the beginning of a treatise it is proper and neces¬ 
sary sometimes to premise some prsecognita, or general 
principles, which may serve for an introduction to the 

* It appears by the date at the bottom of this paper, in the manu¬ 
script, that it was written in the year 1718. The first and perhaps 
the second section of it may seem now to be grown, in a great mea¬ 
sure, out of date; but whether the third is not at least as seasonable 
now as ever, may deserve serious consideration. The author has, 
since this was drawn up, delivered his sentiments more fully in the 
first part of that excellent piece, entitled c< An Humble Attempt fof 
the Revival of Religion,” &c. 



OF WRITING CONTROVERSIES. 


273 


subject in hand, and give light or strength to the fol¬ 
lowing discourse; but it is ridiculous, under a pretence 
of such introductions or prefaces, to wander to the most 
remote or distant themes, which have no near or neces¬ 
sary connexion with the thing in hand; this serves for 
no other purpose but to make a gaudy show of learn¬ 
ing. There was a professor of divinity who began an 
analytical exposition of the Epistle to the Romans with 
such prrecognita as these: first he showed the excellence 
of man above other creatures, who was able to declare 
the sense of his mind by arbitrary signs: then he haran¬ 
gued upon the origin of speech; after that he told of 
the wonderful invention of writing, and inquired into 
the author of that art which taught us to paint sounds; 
when he had given us the various opinions of the learn¬ 
ed upon this point, and distributed writing into the sev¬ 
eral kinds, and laid down definitions of them all, at 
last he came to speak of epistolary writing, and distin¬ 
guished epistles into familiar, private, public, recom¬ 
mendatory, credential, and what not: thence he descend- ' 
ed to speak of the superscription, subscription, &c.; and 
some lectures were finished before he came to the first 
verse of St. Paul’s Epistle. The auditors, being half 
starved and tired with expectation, dropped away one 
by one, so that the professor had scarce any hearer to 
attend the college or lectures which he had promised on 
that part of Scripture. 

The rules which Horace has given in his Art of Poe¬ 
try would instruct many a preacher and professor of 
theology, if they would but attend to them. He informs 
us that a wise author, such as Homer, who writes a 
poem of the Trojan war, would not begin a long and 
far distant story of Jupiter, in the form of a swan, im¬ 
pregnating Leda with a double egg; from one part 
whereof Helen was hatched, who was married to Mene- 
laus, a Greek general, and then stolen from him by 
Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy; which awakened the 
resentment of the Greeks against the Trojans: 

Ncc gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo. 

But the writer, says he, makes all proper haste to the 
event of things, and does not drag on slowly, perpetu- 


274 


OF WRITING CONTROVERSIES. 


ally turning aside from his point, and catching at every 
incident to prolong his story, as though he wanted matter 
to furnish out his tale: 

Semper ad eventum festinat. 

Though I must confess I cannot think Homer has always 
followed this rule in either of his two famous epic poems; 
but Horace does not hear what I say. There is also 
another rule near akin to the former. 

As a writer or speaker should not wander from his 
subject to fetch in foreign matter from afar, so neither 
should he amass together and drag in all that can be 
said, even on his appointed theme of discourse; but he 
should consider what is his chief design, what is the 
end lie hath in view, and then to make every part of 
his discourse subserve that design. If he keep his great 
end always in his eye, he will pass hastily over those 
parts or appendages of his subject which have no evi¬ 
dent connexion with his design; or he will entirely omit 
them, and hasten continually toward his intended mark, 
employing his time, his study, and labour, chiefly on 
the part of his subject which is most necessary to attain 
his present and proper end. 

This might be illustrated by a multitude of examples; 
but an author who would heap them together on such 
an occasion might be in danger of becoming himself an 
example of the impertinence he is cautioning others to 
avoid. 

After you have finished any discourse which you de¬ 
sign for the public, it would be always best, if other cir¬ 
cumstances would permit, to let it sleep some time be¬ 
fore you expose it to the world, that so you may have 
opportunity to review it with the indifference of a 
stranger, and to make the whole of it pass under a new 
and just examination: for no man can judge so justly of 
his own work, while the pleasure of his invention and 
performance is fresh, and has engaged his self-love too 
much on the side of what he has newly finished. 

If an author would send a discourse into the world 
which should be most universally approved, he should 
consult persons of very different genius, sentiment, and 
party, and endeavour to learn their opinions of it: in 


OF WRITING CONTROVERSIES. 


275 


the world it will certainly meet with all these. Set it 
therefore to view among several of your acquaintance 
first, who may survey the argument on all sides, and 
one may happen to suggest a correction which is en¬ 
tirely neglected by others; and be sure to yield yourself 
to the dictates of true criticism and just censure where¬ 
soever you meet with them, nor let a fondness for what 
you have written blind your eyes against the discovery 
of your own mistakes. 

When an author desires a friend to revise his work, it 
is too frequent a practice to disallow almost every cor¬ 
rection which'a judicious friend shall make. He apolo¬ 
gizes for this word, and the other expression; he vindi¬ 
cates this sentence, and gives his reasons for another 
paragraph, and scarcely ever submits to correction; and 
thus utterly discourages the freedom that a true friend 
would take in pointing out our mistakes. Such writers, 
who are so full of themselves, may go on to admire 
their own incorrect performances, and expose theii 
works and their follies to the world without pity.* 
Horace, in his Art of Poetry, talks admirably well on 
this subject: 

Quintilio si quid recitares, Corrige, sodes, 

Hoc, aiebat, et hoc: melius te posse negares, 

Bis terque expertum frastra, delere jubebat, 

Et male tornatos incudi rcddere versus. 

Si defendere delictum, quam vertere, malles; 

JNulIum ultra verbum, aut operam insumebat inanem, 

Quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares. 

Let good Quintilius all your lines revise, 

And he will freely say, Mend this, and this. 

Sir, I have often tried, and tried again, 

I’m sure I can’t do better; ’tis in vain. 

Then blot out ev’ry word, or try once more, 

And file these ill turn’d verses o’er and o’er. 

But if you seem in love with your own thought, 

More eager to defend than mend your fault, 

He says no more, but lets the fop go on, 

And rival-free admire his lovely own. Creech. 

* To cut off such chicanery, it may perhaps be the mest expe¬ 
dient for a person consulted on such an occasion, to note down in a 
distinct paper, with proper references, the advised alterations, re 
ferring it to the author to make such use of them as he, on due de¬ 
liberation, shall think fit. 


276 


OF WRITING CONTROVERSIES. 


If you have not the advantage of friends to survey 
your writings, then read them over yourself, and all the 
way consider what will be the sentence and judgment 
of all the various characters of mankind upon them: 
think what one of your own party would say, or what 
would be the sense of an adversary: imagine what a 
curious or malicious man, what a captious or an envious 
critic, what a vulgar or a learned reader would object, 
either to the matter, the manner, or the style; and be 
sure and think with yourself what you yourself could 
say against your own writing, if you were of a different 
opinion or a stranger to the writer: and by these mean9 
you will obtain some hints whereby to correct and im¬ 
prove your own work, and, to guard it better against the 
censures of the public, as well as to render it more use¬ 
ful to that part of mankind for whom you chiefly de¬ 
sign it. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

OF WRITING AND READING CONTROVERSIES. 

Sect. I. Of writing Controversies. 

When a person of good sense writes on any contro¬ 
verted subject, he will generally bring the strongest ar¬ 
guments that are usually to be found for the support of 
his opinion; and when that is done, he will represent 
the most powerful objections against it in a fair and can¬ 
did manner, giving them their full force; and at last will 
put in such an answer to those objections as he thinks 
will dissipate and dissolve the force of them: and herein 
the reader will generally find a full view of the contro¬ 
versy, together with the main strength of argument on 
both sides. 

When a good writer has set forth his own opinion at 
large, and vindicated it with its fairest and strongest 
proofs, he shall be attacked by some pen on the other 
side of the question: and if his opponent be a wise and 



OF WRITING CONTROVERSIES. 


211 


sensible writer, he will show the best reasons why the 
former opinions cannot be true; that is, he will draw out 
the objections against them in their fullest array, in 
order to destroy what he supposes a mistaken opinion; 
and here we may reasonably ^suppose that an opponent 
will draw up his objections against the supposed error 
in a brighter light, and with stronger evidence than the 
first writer did, who propounded his opinion, which was 
contrary to those objections. 

If, in the third place, the first writer answers his op¬ 
ponent with care and diligence, and maintains his own 
point against the objections which w r ere raised in the 
best manner; the reader may then generally presume, 
that in these three pieces he has a complete view of 
the controversy; together with the most solid and pow¬ 
erful arguments on both sides of the debate. 

But when a fourth, and fifth, and sixth volume appears 
in rejoinders and replies, we cannot reasonably expect 
any great degrees of light to be derived from them, or 
that much further evidences for truth should be found 
in them; and it is sufficiently evident, from daily expe¬ 
rience, that many mischiefs attend this prolongation of 
controversies among men of learning, which, for thg 
most part, do injury to the truth, either by turning the 
attention of the reader quite away from the original 
point to other matters, or by covering the truth with a 
multitude of occasional incidents and perplexities, which 
serve to bewilder rather than guide a faithful inquirer. 

Sometimes, in these latter volumes, the writers on 
both sides will hang upon little words and occasional 
expressions of their opponent, in order to expose them, 
which have no necessary connexion with the grand point 
in view, and which have nothing to do with the debated 
truth. 

Sometimes they will spend many a page in vindica¬ 
ting their own character, or their own little sentences 
or accidental expressions, from the remarks of their 
opponent, in which expressions or remarks the original 
truth has no concern. 

And sometimes again you shall find even writers of 
good sense, who have happened to express themselves 

24 


278 OF WRITING CONTROVERSIES. 

in an improper and indefensible manner, led away by 
the fondness of self-love to justify those expressions, 
and vindicate those little lapses they were guilty of, 
rather than they will condescend to correct those little 
mistakes, or recall those improper expressions. O that 
we would put off our pride, our self-sufficiency, and 
our infallibility, when we enter into a debate of truth! 
But if the writer is guilty of mingling these things with 
this grand argument, happy will that reader be who has 
judgment enough to distinguish them, and to neglect 
every thing that does not belong to the original theme 
proposed and disputed. 

Yet here it may be proper to put in one exception 
to this general observation or remark, namely, When 
the second writer attacks only a particular or collateral 
opinion which was maintained by the first, then the 
fourth writing may be supposed to contain a necessary 
part of the complete force of the argument, as well as 
the second and third, because the first writing only oc¬ 
casionally or collaterally mentioned that sentiment which 
the second attacks and opposes; and in such a case the 
Becond may be esteemed as the first treatise on that con¬ 
troversy. It would take up too much time should we 
mention instances of this kind which might be pointed 
to in most of our controversial writers, and it mipdit be 
invidious to enter into the detail.* 

* Upon this it may be remarked farther, that there is a certain spi¬ 
rit of modesty and of benevolence, which never fails to adorn a wri¬ 
ter on such occasions, and which generally does him much more ser¬ 
vice in the judgment of wise and sensible men, than any poignancy 
of satire with which he might be able to animate his productions; 
and as this always appears amiable, so it is peculiarly charming when 
the opponent shows that pertness and petulancy which is so very 
common on such occasions. When a writer, instead of pursuing 
with eager resentment the antagonist that has given him such provo¬ 
cation, calmly attends to the main question in debate, with a noble 
negligence of those little advantages which ill nature and ill manners 
always give, he acquires a glory far superior to any trophies which 
wit can raise. And it is highly probable that the solid instruction 
his pages may contain will give a continuance to his writings far be¬ 
yond what tracts of peevish controversy are to expect', of which the 
much greater nart are borne away into oblivion by the wind they 
raise, or burned in bsrt- own flame. 


OF READING CONTROVERSIES. 


279 


Sect. II. Of reading Controversies. 

When we take a book into our hands wherein any 
doctrine or opinion is printed in a way of argument, we 
are too often satisfied and determined beforehand whether 
it be right or wrong; and if we are on the writer’s side, 
we are generally tempted to take his arguments for solid 
and substantial. And thus our own former sentiment 
is established more powerfully, without a sincere search 
after truth. 

If we are on the other side the question, we then take 
it for granted that there is nothing of force in these ar¬ 
guments, and we are satisfied with a short survey of 
the book, and are soon persuaded to pronounce mistake, 
weakness, and insufficiency concerning it. Multitudes 
of common readers, who are fallen into any error, when 
they are directed and advised to read a treatise that 
would set them right, read it with a sort of disgust 
which they have before entertained; they skim lightly 
over the arguments, they neglect or despise the force 
of them, and keep their own conclusion firm in their 
assent, and thus maintain their error in the midst of 
light, and .grow incapable of conviction. 

But if we would indeed act like sincere searchers of 
the truth, we should survey every argument with a care¬ 
ful and unbiassed mind, whether it agree with our for¬ 
mer opinion or no: we should give every reasoning its 
full force, and weigh it in our sedatest judgment. Now 
the best way to try what force there is in the arguments 
which are brought against our own opinions, is to sit 
down and endeavour to give a solid answer, one by 
one, to every argument which the'author brings to sup¬ 
port his own doctrine: and in this attempt, if we find 
there some arguments which we are not able to answer 
fairly to our own minds, we should then begin to be¬ 
think ourselves whether we have not hitherto been in 
a mistake, and whether the defender of the contrary sen¬ 
timents may not be in the right. Such a method as 
this will effectually forbid us to pronounce at once 
against those doctrines and those writers which are con¬ 
trary to our sent ; ments; and we shall endeavour to find 


£80 OP READING CONTROVERSIES. 

solid arguments to refute their positions, before we en¬ 
tirely establish ourselves in a contrary opinion. 

Volatilis had given' himself up to the conversation 
of the freethinkers of our age, upon all subjects; and 
being pleased with the wit and appearance of argu¬ 
ment, in some of our modern deists, had too easily de¬ 
serted the Christian faith, and gone over to the camp 
of the infidels. Among other books which were recom¬ 
mended him, to reduce him to the faith of the Gospel, 
he had Mr. John Reynolds’s three Letters to a Deist put 
into his hand, and was particularly desired to peruse 
the third of them with the utmost care, as being an un¬ 
answerable defence of the truth of Christianity. He 
took it in hand, and after having given it a short sur¬ 
vey, he told his friend he saw nothing in it but the com¬ 
mon arguments which we all use to support the religion 
in which we had been educated; but they wrought no 
conviction in him; nor did he see sufficient reason to 
believe that the Gospel of Christ was not a piece of 
enthusiasm, or a mere imposture. 

Upon this, the friend who recommended Mr. Rey¬ 
nolds’s three letters to his study, being confident of the 
force of truth which lay there, entreated Volatilis that 
he would set himself down with diligence, and try to 
answer Mr. Reynolds’s third letter in vindication of the 
Gospel; and that he would show under every head how 
the several steps which were taken in the propagation 
of the Christian religion might be the natural effects 
of imposture or enthusiasm, and, consequently, that it 
deserves no credit amongst men. 

Volatilis undertook the work, and, after he had en¬ 
tered a little way into it, found himself so bewildered, 
and his arguments to prove the apostles either enthusi¬ 
asts or impostors so muddled, so perplexed, and so in¬ 
conclusive, that, by a diligent review of this letter to 
the deists, at last he acknowledged himself fully con¬ 
vinced that the religion of Jesus was divine: for that 
Christian author had made it appear it was impossible 
that that doctrine should have been propagated in the 
world by simplicity or forty, by fraud or falsehood; and 


> 


OP READING CONTROVERSIES. 281 

accordingly he resigned his soul up to the gospel of the 
blessed Jesus. 

I fear there have been multitudes of such unbelievers 
as Volatilis; and he himself has confessed to me, that 
even his most rational friends would be constrained to 
yield to the evidence of the Christian doctrine, if they 
would honestly try the same method. 


























> 


QUESTIONS 

UPON 

WATTS’ 

IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND 


BY J. S. DENMAN. 


INTRODUCTION. 

Page- 

5— -Why are all persons under 
some obligations to improve 
their understanding? What 
will overspread the uncultiva¬ 
ted mind ? How can know¬ 
ledge and skill be acquired ? 
What do the various relations 
of life impose upon all per¬ 
sons ? 

6— In what have all persons an 
important concern ? What 
appears to be the necessary 
duty and interest of all per¬ 
sons? What is the conse¬ 
quence of acting without 
thought or reason ? 

CHAPTER I. 

7— What does the first chapter 
contain ? What is required 
by the first rule ? What 
should we review ? What 
would be the result? What 
should we consider as causes 
of the frailties and mistakes 
of the mind ? Why should 
we read works which treat of 
the doctrine of prejudices,&c.? 

8— Why should we realize our 
own ignorance ? What me¬ 
thods are mentioned in the 
third rule as suited to impress 
the mind with its imperfect 
degrees of knowledge ? 


Page. 

9— What would be the conse¬ 
quence of priding ourselves on 
account of superficial attain¬ 
ments ? What is the substance 
of the fourth rule ? 

10— What is said, in the fifth 
rule, of reading ? What gives 
good sense to the reader, and 
improves his understanding? 

11— Should we imagine a life of 
learning to be one of idleness 
and ease ? What is said of So- 
brino, and Languinos ? 

12— What should incite us tQ 
constant industry in the pur¬ 
suit of knowledge ? What &i 
said of the perfection of learn 
ing and science ? Is it proba¬ 
ble that theologians have ar¬ 
rived at a full understanding 
of all scriptural truths whiclj 
can be known ? What is said 
of every man who shall aid in 
the introduction of an age oa 
light and love ? 

13— What is taught in tlw> 
eighth rule ? What is the 
effect of judging from a super¬ 
ficial view ? Should we form 
any decided judgment of on; 
own on subjects- which w* 
understand very imperfectly t 
What counsels are given in 
the ninth rule ? 

14— What spirit should we con 
stantly guard against ? Wharf 






284 


QUESTIONS. 


Page. 

is a dogmatical spirit ? What 
is said of forming unalterable 
opinions ? Mention some of 
the inconveniences attending 
a dogmatic spirit. 

16— What do frequent changes 
of opinion indicate ? What 
is said of judging falsely? 
What of confessing mistakes 
and renouncing errors ? What 
of humorous conduct and fan¬ 
ciful temper of mind ? What 
is the character of a humor¬ 
ist 7 What is said of trifling 
with important things, and 
sporting with those which are 
sacred 7 What of a spirit ol 
ridicule 7 

17— What is the effect of indul¬ 
ging in any evil habit 7 Why 
should we maintain a virtuous 
and pious frame of spirit? 
What effect does sensuality 
and the indulgence of appe¬ 
tite produce upon the mind ? 
Who is in a fair way to wis¬ 
dom ? What is said of piety, 
and those who abandon reli¬ 
gion 7 

18— What does the fifteenth rule 
warn us to watch against? 
What is said of self-sufficien¬ 
cy in the attainment of know¬ 
ledge ? What of those who 
neglect religion, and depend 
wholly upon their own rea¬ 
son ? 

19— What are the teachings of 
the sixteenth rule ? Mention 
some of the reasons and argu¬ 
ments given in this rule, for 
uniting industry, study, and 
devotion, in the pursuit of 
knowledge and true wisdom. 

CHAPTER H. 

21 —What five methods are men¬ 
tioned by which the mind 
is improved in knowledge? 
What is observation? What 


Page. 

do we gain by observation 
from infancy ? Mention some 
facts which we know by ob¬ 
servation. When is observa¬ 
tion called experience ? How 
do we know we have the 
power of thinking,fearing,&c.? 

22— What does observation in¬ 
clude ? When is it called ex¬ 
periment? What is said of 
reading ? What of lectures ? 
What of conversation ? Is 
conversation always mutually 
beneficial ? 

23— What does meditation in¬ 
clude ? Mention some of the 
results of meditation. What 
furnishes the mind with its 
first ideas ? On what does 
the foundation of knowledge 
depend ? What is said of the 
impossibility of being taught 
by men and books, if we had 
gained no knowledge, by ob¬ 
servation, of external objects, 
and the operations of our own 
minds ? 

24— What is the second advan¬ 
tage mentioned of obtaining 
knowledge by observation ? 
Why are ideas gained by ob¬ 
servation generally clearer and 
more distinct than those ac¬ 
quired by reading, conversa¬ 
tion, &c. Mention the third 
advantage of acquiring know¬ 
ledge by observation. What 
is said of the advantages of 
reading ? 

26— Mention some of the advan¬ 
tages of gaining knowledge by 
means of lectures. 

27— What of the advantages of 
conversation 7 

28— What is the second ad¬ 
vantage mentioned ? Third ? 
Fourth ? Fifth ? 

29— Sixth? Seventh?? 

30— Mention some of the bene¬ 
fits derived from meditation. 



QUESTIONS. 


285 


CHAPTER m. | 

Page. 

32— What is the subject of this 
chapter ? Does observation, 
strictly speaking, include any 
reasonings of the mind 1 Why 
are thoughts relating to rea¬ 
son included in the rules for 
observation 1 What should 
be our constant design in 
life? 

33— How can we acquire know¬ 
ledge by observation, when 
alone, in darkness and si¬ 
lence ? How, when in compa¬ 
ny ? In the country ? Whence 
should we derive instruction ? 

34— What should we learn from 
the vicissitudes of individuals 
and nations ? What from the 
coffin and funeral? The vices 
and follies of others ? Their 
virtues? Deformity, distress, 
&c. ? What from our natural 
powers and faculties ? From 
our pains and sorrows? Sins 
and follies ? Why should the 
laudable curiosity of the young 
be gratified ? 

35— What opportunities for ob¬ 
servation should be given to 
the young ? What observa¬ 
tions should be written down, 
and for what purpose ? W T hat 
will be the effect of such prac¬ 
tice ? Should we ever neglect 
to improve our minds by ob¬ 
servation ? 

36— What is said of the obser¬ 
vations of Theobaldino and 
Puteoli ? Why should we 
guard against passions and 
prejudices, when making ob¬ 
servations ? What is said of 
false judgments, envy, and 
self-flattery ? 

37— What is the substance of 
the fifth rule ? Of the sixth ? 
What is said of observations 
concerning persons ? What 
if the conduct observed is 
highly culpable ? What rule 


Page. 

should be observed in conver¬ 
sation ? 

38—What is the apostolic pre¬ 
cept relative to evil speaking ? 
What is a false induction ? 
What is said of general ob¬ 
servations which have been 
drawn trom many particulars ? 
What of hastily determining 
universal principles ? What 
causes scandal to be cast upon 
a whole nation ? 

CHAPTER IV. 

38— Of what does this chapter 
treat ? What is said of books ? 

39— What advantage would the 
young derive from having pro¬ 
per books recommended for 
their reading? What is said 
of reading books of impor¬ 
tance in a cursory manner ? 
What of the preface and table 
of contents? How should a 
good book be read a second 
time ? What is said of pas¬ 
sages which contain ideas or 
truths previously unknown to 
the reader? Mention a se¬ 
cond reason for a superficial 
survey of a new book ? 

40— What plan is recommended 
for several persons reading the 
same book ? What if they 
are perusing different works 
on the same subject ? What 
should be our chief object in 
reading ? How should we 
deal with every author? 
When yield our assent ? 
What is sufficient evidence to 
demand our assent to truths 
of the biltle ? 

41— Whose reason should guide 
us when reading the produc¬ 
tions of uninspired men ? 
What is recommended in the 
sixth rule ? To what, beside 
reading, may many directions 
given in this chapter apply 





286 


QUESTIONS. 


Page. 

What is the substance of the 
seventh rule ? 

42— What should we recollect 
when we have finished any 
book ? What is said of books 
which have no index ? What 
will compensate for the pains 
which such method of read¬ 
ing will cost 1 What of wri¬ 
ters who have peculiar excel¬ 
lencies or defects ? What 
benefit will be derived from 
reading one book in this labo¬ 
rious manner ? 

43— Will such course of reading 
improve the reasoning powers? 
Why do some diligent readers 
fail to make any advances 
in true knowledge ? To whom 
is such a reader compared ? 
What is the effect of entering 
into the sense of all the argu¬ 
ments, and examining all the 
proofs of the authors read ? 

44— What is said of Studentio, 
Plumbinus, and I’lumeo ? 
What of those whose reading 
is designed to fit them for 
much talk, and little know¬ 
ledge 1 What of those of 
much reading, a retentive 
memory, and but little medi¬ 
tation 7 What of reading 
with a predetermination to be¬ 
lieve or disbelieve 7 To what 
should the mind always be 
open ? 

45— What caution is given in 
the twelfth rule 7 Wha t books 
should we read with freedom 
of thought after our principles 
are well established 7 How 
should we read works which 
defend our sentiments! Those 
that oppose them 7 

46— To what class of books do 
the preceding remarks on read¬ 
ing chiefly relate 7 What 
should we do when reading 
works which were written to 
direct our practice! What, 


Page. 

when folly and vice are re¬ 
presented ! What should we 
remember in all our pursuits 
of knowledge? What is said 
of history, poesy, &c. 

47— What paragraphs and senti¬ 
ments deserve remark ? What 
histories, poems, &c. should be 
reviewed and closely studied 7 
What is said of miscellaneous 
essays, the Spectator, &c. 

48— What is said of dictionaries, 
&c. ? What of permitting an 
unknown word to pass in read¬ 
ing ? What is recommended 
when reading where we can¬ 
not consult books which would 
explain what we do not under¬ 
stand ? Should we seek a 
knowledge of the best authors 
on a subject, or of tits' subject 
itself? 

49— Mention the follies which 
those are apt to practice, who 
desire to increase their know¬ 
ledge of books, but are con¬ 
tent with the title pages? 
Who is said to be deplorably 
poor in understanding ? 

CHAPTER V. 

49— What may assist us in 
judging of books we have not 
seen before ? 

50— What shall we ascertain by 
selecting and reading a few 
chapters ? What is the sub¬ 
stance of the second rule for 
judging of new books ? How 
are we apt to judge of books 
which support our opinions ? 
Of those which oppose them 1 

51— How should books be judg¬ 
ed ? What is said of several 
works called Characteristics ? 

52— What is said pf the mis¬ 
takes of those who read works 
on subjects with which they 
have but little acquaintance ? 
How are we in danger of 








QUESTIONS. 


287 


Page. 

judging of treatises on sub¬ 
jects with which we are fa¬ 
miliar ? 

53— Are the prejudices which 
warp our judgment few or 
many ? What is said of those 
who are fond of meddling 
with all appearances of know¬ 
ledge ? Of Divito and his 
companions'? 

54— What is said of those who 
form judgments from hearsay? 
What of Sonillus ? Of Pro¬ 
bus ? 

55— What feelings usually in¬ 
fluence those who severely 
censure valuable books on 
account of trifling mistakes 
and errors ? Mention the pre¬ 
cept of Horace on this sub¬ 
ject. 

56— What is said of envy, and 
envious persons ? How may 
an envious person correct his 
feelings ? What is much 
more amiable than accusation? 

57— Why is it easy to find mis¬ 
takes in all human produc¬ 
tions? What is said of au¬ 
thors who ridicule divine wri¬ 
tings and sacred things, and 
exalt the writings of the an¬ 
cient pagans ? Whose wri¬ 
tings are mentioned as differ¬ 
ing from nature ? What is 
said of the writings of Steele, 
St. Paul, Moses, and David ? 
What course is recommended 
to little critics ? What is the 
world said to love? What 
may teach us to judge more 
favorably of the performances 
of others ? 

58— Whc may cavil at the no¬ 
blest productions ? Mention 
another fault in passing judg¬ 
ment upon books? What effect 
does this fault produce on the 
minds of others ? Did Florus 
jud/ie correctly of the writings 
cf Feueloa Archbishop of 


Page. 

Cambray? What is said of 
the writings of Fenelon ? 

59— Are there many such au¬ 
thors as the Archbishop of 
Cambray? What is said of 
the judgment of Altisono, and 
the writings of Casimire ? 

60— What is said of Milton ? Of 
Paradise Lost? How must 
the reader be influenced who 
admires every line of that 
poem ? What should we 
consider when we hear others 
pronounce judgment upon a 
book ? Can every man of 
good sense judge correctly of 
the merits of a particular 
book? 

CHAPTER VI. 

61— Do most persons need the 
assistance of living teachers ? 
Why is it advisable to have 
more than one instructor ? 

62— What should instructors 
possess in addition to compe¬ 
tency in the sciences they 
teach ? What pupils grow 
lean in their understanding ? 
Why are some very learned 
men incompetent instructors ? 
What is the character of a 
good tutor ? 

63— What is said of the exam¬ 
ple and spirit of a tutor? 
What of the duty of the learn¬ 
er to his teacher ? Why 
should the student review 
lectures and note important 
results ? Should we be satis¬ 
fied with a bare attendance 
on lectures ? What opinion 
should the learner maintain of 
his instructor ? 

64— When may the learner dif¬ 
fer from his tutor ? What is 
said of young persons who 
fancy themselves wiser than 
their teachers ? Are teachers 
infallible ? Mention the two 



288 


QUESTIONS. 


Paffe. 

extremes to which youth are 
exposed ? Should the pupil 
receive opinions on the au¬ 
thority of his tutor, without 
examining them for himself ? 
When should we receive an 
opinion ? 


CHAPTER VII. 

65— What is of first importance 
in reading and hearing lec¬ 
tures 1 IIow are living lan¬ 
guages most easily 1 learned 1 
Dead languages 7 

66— What advice is given in rule 
third to those who have just 
commenced learning a lan¬ 
guage 7 

67— What is said to be the liv¬ 
ing language of the learned 
world ? 

68— What inference may be 
drawn from the fact that 
small children learn by con¬ 
versation to speak their mo¬ 
ther tongue 7 

69— What should always be 
carefully observed in commit 
ting rules and lessons to mem¬ 
ory ? What is said of re¬ 
quiring children to memorize 
lessons which contain un¬ 
known words and phrases, 
and convey no ideas to their 
minds ? 

72— How may we retain a lan¬ 
guage? Should we content 
ourselves with a doubtful 
translation ? 

73— What are languages said to 
be? What is their chief de¬ 
sign ? What is said of learn¬ 
ing the words and phrases of 
a language, without obtaining 
corresponding ideas ? What 
is in danger of pulling ip the 
mind with vanity ? 


CHAPTER VIII 

Page. 

73— Of what does this chapter 
treat 7 Is it sometimes diffi. 
cult fully to understand a wri 
ter or speaker 7 

74— What is the substance of 
the first rule for determining 
the sense 7 Second rule 7 
With what should we com¬ 
pare the words and phrases 
of an author? Why should 
we make such comparisons 7 
Who is the best interpreter of 
any writer 7 Why are con 
cordances valuable in the 
interpretation of scripture 7 
Substance of fourth rule 7 

75 — Of fifth rule ? Of sixth rule 7 
What is necessary to enable 
us to interpret scripture well 1 
Substance of eighth rule 7 

76— How may we judge of oh 
scure passages which occur in 
controversies 7 Substance of 
tenth rule 7 Of eleventh rule 7 
How should we treat every 
author, writer, and speaker 1 

CHAPTER IX. 

77— Of what does this chapter 
treat 7 With whom is it well 
to be acquainted 7 What ad¬ 
vice is here given 7 Substance 
of second rule? Of third 
rule ? 

78— In what sense is a me¬ 
chanic wiser than a philo¬ 
sopher ? Why should we not 
always confine ourselves to 
one sort of company? Why 
did the king of Siam dis¬ 
believe the European mer¬ 
chants ? What is said of con¬ 
versation with foreigners ? 

79— How should we hear ? Of 
what should we be cautious? 
What divine rule is here giv¬ 
en? Whence dops it come? 
Substance of the sixth rule ? 
Should we imagine there is 



QUESTIONS. 


S89 


Page. 

no certain truth but in the 
sciences we study ? 

40—Why do we frequently fail 
to form correct conclusions? 
What is here said of corres 
pondents? What method is 
recommended for reviving con¬ 
versation in company ? 

<1—How may social visits be 
prevented from running to 
waste ? What is here said of 
young ladies ? What general 
rule should we observe, when 
it is in our power to lead in 
conyersation ? How should 
we hear the arguments of 
others? What is said to be 
an unhappy temper and prac¬ 
tice? 

82— What is the substance of 
the eleventh rule? Repeat 
the quotation from Horace. 
What is recommended in 
cases of obscurity in the lan¬ 
guage of those with whom we 
are conversing ? 

83— When we cannot assent to 
the expressed opinions of oth¬ 
ers, how should we present 
our objections ? What should 
we impress upon the mind of 
the speaker? Mention Solo¬ 
mon’s rule. What is said of 
confessing our ignorance, and 
asking for information ? 

84— What counsels are given to 
the young in the fifteenth 
rule ? 

85— Of what are weak minds 
ready to persuade themselves ? 
How may a wise and modest 
person act when confronting 
a bold pretender, ancf innocent 
vilifier ? What is here said to 
be a pity? What advice is 
given in the seventeenth rule ? 

86— Should we introduce a warm 
party spirit into conversations 
designed for mutual improve¬ 
ment ? What is said to bar 
Hie doors of the understand- 


Page. 

ing against the admiss&m of 
new sentiments? Wfe?t of 
new discoveries, &c.? What 
is the substance of the nine¬ 
teenth rule? Of the twen¬ 
tieth ? Of the twenty-first? 

87— Whose ignorance and preju¬ 

dices should we be most ready 
to suspect? How should we 
bear contradiction ? What 
might induce others to con¬ 
clude that our opinions are 
not based upon the evidences 
of truth? What should be 
banished from conversation? 
What are the enemies of 
friendship, and tend to ruin 
free conversation ? What 

does the impartial search for 
truth require? 

88— What is the substance of 
the twenty-fourth rule? Of 
the twenty-fifth ? What rule 
is given for selecting compan¬ 
ions ? Should we always re¬ 
gard their moral character ? 

88-89—Mention the several in¬ 
firmities which are said to 
make some moral, intellectual, 
and scientific persons undesi¬ 
rable associates in our inqui¬ 
ries after truth. 

90— Against what should we 
constantly watch ? What 
should we do after retiring 
from company? What in¬ 
struction should we draw from 
the thirtieth rule ? 

91— How may we learn to avoid 
the follies which injure or 
destroy good conversation ? 
What may we acquire by 
pursuing such course ? Where 
may we make the highest in¬ 
tellectual acquisitions which 
can be gained by conversing 
with mortals ? With whom 
may we hope to converse here¬ 
after ? 




290 


QUESTIONS. 


CHAPTER X. 

Page. 

92— Of what does this chapter 
treat? What is here consid¬ 
ered disputes ? Do all dispu¬ 
tants believe in the proposi¬ 
tions they support? Do all 
disputes result in discovering 
or maintaining truth ? What 
should be observed in com¬ 
mencing a debate? 

93 — How may disputants avoid 
running into remote propo¬ 
sitions and axioms ? How 
should every question be ex¬ 
pressed? What advice is here 
given to a certain class of per¬ 
sons ? 

94 — What should be distinctly 
settled between disputants ? 
What prevents their running 
from the precise point of in¬ 
quiry? What is the chief 
cause of the dishonest artifice 
which is said to give endless 
length to disputes ? 

95— What frequently prevents 
us from yielding our assent 
to the convictions of truth? 
What is said to be the bane of 
all real improvement, and to 
work with a secret influence 
in all disputes? To what 
does the mind often resort to 
ward off the convictions of 
truth ? How should we enter 
upon every debate? 

06—What is a more valuable 
acquisition than a victory over 
an opponent? What should 
we narrowly watch in every 
dispute ? How did Cautio ex¬ 
tricate himself from the diffi¬ 
culty in which he was invol¬ 
ved by too readily yielding 
his assent to the proposition 
of Polonides ? 

97—What was the argument of 
Fatalio to induce Fidens to 
leave offprayer ? What argu¬ 
ment is used to induce Fidens 
to continue daily prayer? 


Page. 

98— What inquiry is made rela 
tive to Sodom and Gomorrah, 
the Deluge, &c.? What cau¬ 
tion is given in relation to the 
subtle errors of men ? What 
course should we pursue 
when an opponent makes a 
concession which may be ser¬ 
viceable to us in maintaining 
the truth? 

99— Mention the entire argu¬ 
ment of Rhapsodus in attempt¬ 
ing to detract from the honor 
of Christianity? What con¬ 
cessions does he subsequently 
make? Can Christianity be 
supported by this concession? 
Repeat the argument given. 

100— Mention the three ques¬ 
tions here put to Rhapsodus ? 
What good may have been 
accomplished from preaching 
the doctrines held by Rhapso¬ 
dus ? Is it probable that en¬ 
vy, revenge, and the secret 
vices of the mind have been 
subdued, and men been induc¬ 
ed to forsake their sins and 
love God with hearts devoted 
to true piety, from the preach¬ 
ings of such doctrines ? What 
has the gospel accomplished ? 

101— Who understands human 
nature better than Rhapso¬ 
dus ? What further conces¬ 
sion does Rhapsodus make? 
What does he term a liberal 
education, and a liberal ser¬ 
vice ? Mention the argument 
in favor of Christianity which 
is drawn from this concession? 
What course may we some¬ 
times pursue when engaged 
with a disputant of very dif¬ 
ferent principles from our 
own ? 

102— What is said of holding an 
argument with a stoic, philos¬ 
opher, or a Je\V? Mention 
what is said of some of the 
arguments of St. Paul ? What 



QUESTIONS. 


291 


Page. 

should we guard against with 
great care? What frequent¬ 
ly causes personal brawls ? 
What is usually the result of 
such brawls ? 

103—What is said of those who 
guard themselves as to pre¬ 
vent evil influences from dis¬ 
turbing the superior operations 
of their minds ? In what de¬ 
bates are the preceding direc¬ 
tions useful? 

CHAPTER XL 

103—Whence does the Socratic 
method of disputation derive 
its name ? 

L04—How is it managed ? 

! 05—What is the first class of 
advantages mentioned of the 
Socratic method ? Second 
class ? Third class ? Fourth 
class? What is said of a 
method nearly akin to this ? 

106—What advantage would be 
derived from framing Chris¬ 
tian catechisms in the manner 
of a Socratical dispute ? What 
inconvenience would arise 
from such catechisms ? 


y CHAPTER XII. 

106— Of what does this chapter 
treat ? What was the former ? 
From what do Forensic dis¬ 
putes derive their name ? 
What may be properly classed 
under this head? 

107— Where are these disputes 
practised? Do persons in a 
forensic dispute usually suc¬ 
ceed each other on the same, 
or opposite sides of a ques¬ 
tion? After all have spoken, 
what course is frequently pur¬ 
sued by the speakers ? ’ How 
is the controversy decided ? 
When the matter in debate 


Page. 

consists of several parts, what 
is frequently done ? 

108— What is usually practised 
before the final decision is 
given ? Would it be advisa¬ 
ble to introduce forensic de¬ 
bates into academies and 
other schools ? 

CHAPTER XIII. 

109— Mention the substance of 
the several steps in scholastic 
disputation given on this page? 
Of what should the first part 
of the writer’s discourse con¬ 
sist? What should be given 
in the second part? 

110— Why should not respond¬ 
ents indulge in reproaches, 
&c.? How are scholastic dis¬ 
putations conducted ? 

111— What is the most useful 
and best sort of disputation ? 

113— What advantages are here 
mentioned as arising from ac¬ 
ademical disputations? What 
inconveniences may overbal¬ 
ance these advantages? 

114— What inconveniences are 
here mentioned as being lia¬ 
ble to arise from scholastic 
disputations? 

115— Is it advisable to dispute 
about mere trifles ? Why 
should vye not dispute about 
infinite and unsearchable 
things ? Why should we not 
dispute about obvious and 
known truths ? What would 
be the consequence, if every 
dispute could be made the 
means of searching out truth ? 
What should be the aim and 
design of every disputant? 

116— Of what should every op¬ 
ponent be solicitous? How 
should all disputants clothe 
their thoughts ? What is hftte 
said of indulging in ridicule, 
jest, and merriment? What 



292 


QUESTIONS. 


Page. 

of sarcasm, insolent language, 
personal scandal, &c. ? 

117— What is here recommend¬ 
ed to both vanquished and 
victorious disputants ? 

118— Why does it seem neces¬ 
sary that these methods of 
disputation should be learned 
in schools ? 


CHAPTER XIV. 

118— What has been establish¬ 
ed in some of the foregoing 
chapters ? 

119— What will do much of 
themselves toward the culti¬ 
vation of the mind? Who 
has all human aids concurring 
to raise him to a superior de¬ 
gree of wisdom and know¬ 
ledge ? What direction is 
here given to the young? 
With what would scholastic 
divinity furnish us ? 

120— Mention the substance of 
the third rule ? What effect 
is liable to be produced on the 
mind, by its attempting to 
search out and comprehend 
matters far above its power? 
What is the substance of the 
fourth rule ? What should 
be observed in learning any 
thing new? 

121— How may the mind cope 
with great difficulties? What 
is said of Mathon ? What of 
engaging the mind in too many 
things at once ? What of a 
variety of studies ? Mention 
some studies which are es¬ 
teemed entertaining ? 

122— In -the pursuit of know¬ 
ledge what should we always 
keep in view ? In what man¬ 
ner should we exert our skill 
and diligence ? Why are the 
fundamental truths of phi¬ 
losophy and religion of the 


Page. 

highest importance? Mention 
some of these principles ? 

123— Why should we be very 
careful in examining all pro¬ 
positions which claim to be 
general principles ? Which 
are most important in the pur¬ 
suit of knowledge, practical 
points, or mere speculations ? 
Of what should we be most 
careful in matters of practice ? 
What will advance us apace 
toward real misery ? 

124— In what comparison- are 
the interests of this world of 
small importance? Mention 
what is here stated relative 
to our religious inquiries ? 
What is the substance of the 
eighth rule? Of the ninth 
rule ? 

125— How must things be con¬ 
sidered ? To what must 
we bring our understanding ? 
What is here said of becom¬ 
ing strongly prejudiced in fa¬ 
vor of one study, and despis¬ 
ing others ? 

126— What science should al¬ 
ways be regarded as of first 
importance? What will be 
secured by order and method? 
Mention the substance of the 
twelfth rule. Of the thir¬ 
teenth. 

127— Should we expect to arrive 
at certainty in every subject 
we pursue ? How should we 
balance our arguments ? What 
would prevent our ever form¬ 
ing a wise resolution? To 
what are we bound to assent 
and act? How should we ap¬ 
ply every study, however spe¬ 
culative ? 

128— To what should researches 
in Natural Philosophy lead us? 
What advantage may be se¬ 
cured by pursuing mathemat¬ 
ical speculations ? What 
should guard us against re- 





QUESTIONS. 


293 


frige. 

jecting any revealed doctrine, 
though we cannot fully un¬ 
derstand it? When should 
we change our sentiments ? 
Is there equal necessity of our 
changing methods of study 
and practice? How is this 
illustrated ? 

CHAPTER XV. 

129— What is highly necessary 
in order to the improvement 
of the mind ? 

130— Why do we judge falsely 
of many things ? For what 
should we obtain a liking ? 
What is said of the study of 
mathematics ? Of history ? • 

131— Mention the substance of 
the second rule. What is the 
objection to representing moral 
subjects by pictures? What 
authors should we read ? 

. What is the substance of the 
fourth, rule? 

132— What counsel is given in 
the fifth rule ? In the sixth ? 
What considerations should 
serve to engage and fix the 
mind in the pursuit of know¬ 
ledge ? 

CHAPTER XVI. 

133— Of What does this chapter 
treat ? Mention the three 
things which go to make up 
that amplitude of mind which 
constitutes the noblest char¬ 
acter of the understanding? 
What is said of the mind 
which can readily take in vast 
and sublime ideas ? What is 
said of those whose minds 
have been confined to the 
common affairs of life ? 

134— How do persons who ha ve 
acquired such contracted hab¬ 
its of thought regard the most 
glorious and sublime truths? 


Page. , 

What is the first stej recom¬ 
mended to be taken for the re¬ 
lief of such minds ? 

135— What might lead them to 
believe there are bodies ama¬ 
zingly great or small? How 
may such minds be taught to 
take in some of the vast di¬ 
mensions, spaces, and motions 
of the heavenly bodies ? 

136— What writings are men¬ 
tioned as having a natural 
tendency to enlarge the ca 
parity of the mind, and famil¬ 
iarize it with sublime ideas ? 

137— Where may some of the 
most fexalted ideas, elevated 
language, and glorious descrip¬ 
tions be found ? Of whom 
does this enlargement of mind 
lead us to form exalted concep¬ 
tions? When will it entertain 
our thoughts with holy won¬ 
der and amazement ? ' Of 
whom beside God does this 
enlargement of mind enable 
us to form more just concep¬ 
tions ? 

138— What ideas are here ad¬ 
vanced of the various ranks 
of beings ? Of whom shall 
we thus obtain more just 
ideas ? What is a second evi¬ 
dence of the amplitude of the 
mind ? 

139— Who are justly charged 
with a narrowness of soul ? 
What is here said of those 
who have never travelled? 
How may this narrowness of 
mind be cured? What causes 
the religions prejudices of ma¬ 
ny people ? 

140— Who think it just to cen¬ 
sure all those severely whose 
religious opinions are different 
from their own ? How is this 
defect to be relieved? To 
what test should we bring all 
doctrines? What will enlarge 
our charity toward others ? 



294 


QUESTIONS. 


rage. 

liS— Mention a third qualifica¬ 
tion of the amplitude of mind ? 
How does the ample mind 
survey subjects ? What is a 
great impediment to wisdom 
and happiness? What is a 
sign of a large and capacious 
mind? 

143— When are we in danger of 
passing a false judgment ? 
What things must necessarily 
be taken in view in order to 
determine whether an action 
is wise or foolish, good or 
evil ? 

144— Do incompetent persons 
frequently pass judgments up¬ 
on private and public affairs ? 

145— Why is it needful to pos- 1 
sess a capacious mind? What 
is here said of the natural ca¬ 
pacity of mind ? Who should 
apply themselves to arts and 
professions which are easily 
learned ? What of those 
whose minds are a little more 
capacious ? 

146— What makes a great man ? 
What should we labor to gain ? 
To what should we accustom 
ourselves ? Mention what is 
said of one obscure idea ? 
What should we further con¬ 
sider ? 

147— For what should we use 
all diligence ? How may we 
furnish ourselves with useful 
truths, axioms, and observa¬ 
tions to assist and direct our 
judgment? To what should 
we continually inure our 
minds ? 

148— What is here said of the 
science of ontology ? How 
should we commence, and in 
what manner should we ad¬ 
vance in the acquisition of 
knowledge 1 

149— By what process does the ge¬ 
ometrician obtain that know¬ 
ledge and sk : il which enables 


Page. 

him to judge at one glance of 
the most complicated diagram? 
Is the advantage of this pro¬ 
gressive method confined to 
mathematical learning? What 
is here said of Plato, Locke, 
and others ? Mention another 
means of acquiring amplitude 
of mind. Where may such 
difficult questions be found ? 

CHAPTER XVII. 

150— When are we said to re¬ 
member a thing ? Ca n we re¬ 
member that of which we 
never had any knowledge ? 
What must be done in order 

• to make our learning really 
useful ? What is here said of 
the excellency of the memory? 

151— How does the memory en¬ 
rich the mind ? What would 
the soul of man be without 
memory ? What is here said 
of the memory of hearers? 
Of speakers? What is said 
to give life and spirit to every¬ 
thing spoken ? 

152— Is a good memory always 
united with a good judgment? 
Upon what does a good judg¬ 
ment in some measure de¬ 
pend ? How do we learn to 
judge of the future ? 

153— What is said of Penseroso? 
What advice relative to hasty 
judgment is here given to all? 
How are some persons of mod¬ 
erate abilities enabled to excel 
those of the brightest genius? 
Why is it that persons of a 
bright genius are often found 
to have but a feeble memory? 

154— What is here said of crowd¬ 
ing the memory and thus abus¬ 
ing other faculties of the 
mind ? When may the mind 
be said to have large posses¬ 
sions but no true riches ? Men¬ 
tion Milton’s simile of the 





QUESTIONS. 


295 


Page. 

books of the Fathers. What 
are said to compose the intel¬ 
lectual possessions of the 
greatest part of mankind ? 

155— What constitute a wealthy 
and happy mind ? What joys 
are mentioned as not belong¬ 
ing to mortality? 

156— What does the mind em¬ 
ploy in all its operations? How 
does it obtain a knowledge of 
external objects? What is 
here said of the memory ? 
Of the brain in early life ? 
What does the improvement of 
the memory require ? What 
is said of impressions ^jiade 
upon the mind ? What of 
persons of advanced age ?< 
How is the memory affected ? 

157— What three cases are here 
mentioned of the influence 
of disease upon the mind ? 
What of impressions which 
are deeply engraven on the 
mind? What prevents last¬ 
ing impressions from being 
made on the minds of aged 
persons ? What may help to 
preserve the memory ? What 
excesses may impair it ? Men¬ 
tion the four qualifications of 
a good memory? 

158— What general direction is 
here given for the improve¬ 
ment of the mental faculties ? 
How will the memory be im¬ 
proved or injured ? Why 
should words be remembered 
as well as things? What 
caution is here given ? 

159— Should the memory be 
crowded with many ideas at 
one time? Why do those 
things which are read or heard 
make but a slight impression 
upon many minds ? Will 
sloth and indolence bless the 
mind with intellectual riches ? 
Why does Vario treasure up 
but little knowledge? 


Page. 

160— Why is it necessary to 
have distinct ideas of things ? 
How should everything we 
learn be conveyed to the un 
derstanding ? Why do many 
forget what has been taught 
them ? 

161— What is essential in teach¬ 
ing the principles of religion 
to children? What is the hap¬ 
piest way to furnish the mind 
with a variety of knowledge ? 

162— Does the mutual depend¬ 
ence of things aid the memo¬ 
ry ? Why are some writings 
more easily learned than oth¬ 
ers? What is said to be a 
fault in some preachers ? 
What is here said of reviews 
and abridgments ? 

163— Mention the practice of 
Mnemon. In what particular 
is the art of short-hand useful? 

164— What are we here coun¬ 
selled to avoid ? What is a 
most useful manner of review? 
Mention the practice of Herme- 
tas. What is said greatly to 
assist the memory? What 
of the natural inclination of 
the learner ? 

165— How was Spectorius taught? 
What is said of teaching child- 
dren in rhyme and in way of 
play? 

166— Why have moral rules and 
precepts been written in 
rhyme ? 

167— What is of great import¬ 
ance in aiding the memory? 
Mention the practice of Ma- 
ronides. Of Animato. What 
is said of associating a new 
idea-with time and place ? 

168— What is said of associating 
kindred or similar ideas c 
What of contraries? Wha 
of local memory? Whai 
meant by local memory? 

169— What sense conveys thtf 
most perfect ideas to the mind 




296 


QUESTIONS. 


Page. 

Mention what florace affirms 
of the sight. What is here 
said of the use of tables, dia¬ 
grams, maps, charts, &c. ? 

170— What is here said of wri¬ 
ting, map drawing, &c. ? 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

171— Of what does this chapter 
treat ? What should we con¬ 
sider when a question is pro¬ 
posed ? 

172— What should constitute a 
second subject to be consider¬ 
ed ? A third ? A fourth ? 

173— A fifth ? How may some 
questions be rendered less ob¬ 
scure ? What caution is given 
relative to new statements? 
What frequently goes a great 
way toward answering a ques¬ 
tion ? In what does the great¬ 
est part of true knowledge 
lie ? What often shows the 
mind where the truth lies ? 

174— What caution is here giv¬ 
en relative to questions which 
relate to axioms, or first prin¬ 
ciples? What is insufficient 
to determine the truth of a 
proposition? When may a 
proposition be considered an 
axiom ? What should we 
observe in searching after 
truth in questions of a doubt¬ 
ful nature? What is here 
said of inheriting opinions ? 

175— What is the effect of in¬ 
heriting local truths, and be¬ 
coming positive on proposi¬ 
tions whose evidence we have 
never examined? What is 
said of determining questions 
of difficulty and importance? 
In examining objects of sense, 
when is the examination par¬ 
tial ? When, in the examina¬ 
tion of those which are to be 
determined by reason ? 

176—When are examinations 
partial is questions depending 


Page. 

on human testimony ? What 
is said of determining ques¬ 
tions by natural reason,where 
we might be assisted by reve¬ 
lation ? What of determining 
questions by doubtful revela¬ 
tions ? What is the substance 
of the thirteenth rule? Of 
the fourteenth ? 

177— Of what should we take 
heed, and be watchful ? What 
is here related of the ancient 
Romans ? What is said of the 
belief in good and evil omens, 
unlucky days, &c.? What will 
tend to establish our minds in 
doubtful doctrines, and close 
the avenues of future light? 

178— Of what should we be 
zealous ? To what should our 
zeal be subject? What is 
here said of jest and ridicule ? 
What of raillery and wit? 
What of a silly practice ? 

179— How may the strongest 
reasoning, the best sense, and 
the most obvious axioms be 
made to appear foolish and 
absurd? Does this deprive 
them of their real character ? 
What is said of Euclid? Of 
the moral and religious duties? 

180— To what is banter and rid¬ 
icule here compared ? What 
is here said to be a piece of 
contempt and profane inso¬ 
lence ? 

181— What should alone influ¬ 
ence our opinions in contro¬ 
versies ? What is oftentimes 
found to be true ? Who are 
usually most positive ? What 
has sometimes tempted men 
of learning to adopt these 
practices of the haughty T and 
ignorant ? When may wri¬ 
ters of good sense be allowed 
to use a degree of assurance 
and confidence ? 

182— Should we decide all_ques¬ 
tions with one answer ? What 






QUESTIONS. 


29T 


Page. 

is here»said of Cicero ? What 
is the substance of the twen¬ 
ty-first rule ? 

183— Substance of the twenty- 
second rule? What general 
rule should be observed ? 

184— What direction cannot be 
too often repeated? Should 
we be required to give our as¬ 
sent where we have not suffi¬ 
cient evidence ? 

136—What duties should exert 
most influence over our minds? 
What is here said of prayer 
and other Christian duties ? 

187— What is the substance of 
the first rule for judging of 
probabilities ? Of the second ? 
Of the third ? 

188— What is here said of stand¬ 
ing firm in well established 
principles? Should we de¬ 
termine, positively, things 
wherein we may possibly 
mistake? Why are we lia¬ 
ble to err in our interpreta¬ 
tions of passages of scripture ? 

CHAPTER XIX. 

189— Of what does this chapter 
treat? What should first be 
considered in tracing effects 
to their causes ? What should 
be the second point of inquiry ? 

190— The third? The fourth? 
What should be the first 
point of inquiry in tracing 
causes to their effects ? 

191— The second ? The third ? 
The fourth ? The fifth ? The 
sixth ? What is here said of 
the practice of physicians ? 

192— What is said of causes 
and effects which are neces¬ 
sarily connected ? 

CHAPTER XX. 

192—What is the best way to 
learn any science ? 


Page. 

193— To what should students 
apply themselves? Are w« 
capable of judging correctly of 
a science until we have taken 
a survey of the whole? Men¬ 
tion the illustration ? 

194— Why do some persons cast 
contempt on systematic learn¬ 
ing? What should be done 
after learning a short compen¬ 
dium of a science? When 
should we take a judicious 
review of the whole ? Why 
do some persons waste their 
time in reading scientific 
treatises which are of little 
value ? 

195— When are languages most 
easily learned ? W hat is here 
said of abstract sciences ? 
Mention some of the sciences 
which are considered suitable 
for young children ? Mention 
the first reason for considering 
that these sciences may be 
pursued by those of tender 
age with ease and advantage. 
What is the second reason ? 
The third ? Plow is it best to 
train up children ? What is 
here said of the use of dia¬ 
grams, &c. ? 

196— How may knowledge thus 
obtained be retained in the 
memory ? 

198— Who should gain some 
idea of most of the sciences ? 
What parts of science should 
be chiefly studied at first? 
Of whom should the young 
ask advice ? Name the three 
learned professions. Who 
should have some knowledge 
of each of these ? 

199— What is said to be an an¬ 
gelic pleasure ? Mention some 
of the advantages of mathe¬ 
matical studies. What are 
often made of admirable ser¬ 
vice in human life? 

200— What are the remarks of 




298 


QUESTIONS. 


Page. 

Dr. Cheyne in relation to the 
abstruse depths and difficul¬ 
ties of mathematics ? What 
may be made agreeable amuse¬ 
ments to all young persons? 

201— How have many young 
persons secured their time 
from running to waste, pre ¬ 
vented foolish scenes and 
actions, and laid a foundation 
for the esteem and love of 
mankind? What is said of 
the study of history ? What 
are called the eyes of history ? 
What is said of biography 1 
Mention some of the benefits 
to be derived from reading 
biographv. 

202— What is here said of Chris¬ 
tian biographies ? Of what 
sciences should all persons 
have some knowledge ? 

203— What does true logic teach 
us ? Metaphysics ? What 
is here said of the benefits to 
be derived from the study of 
natural philosophy, and na¬ 
tural history ? 

204— From ' what may much 
pleasure and profit be deriv¬ 
ed ? What science eminent¬ 
ly belongs to physicians 1 
'What is here said of lawyers 7 
Of divines'? 

205— What science is here re¬ 
presented as worthy the study 
of a divine? Of what may 
we be informed by this sci¬ 
ence 7 

206— What is the first part of 
natural religion ? Second 
part 7 What is contained 
and necessarily implied in all 
revealed religions 7 Whom 
should we know, and what 
are we bound to practice un¬ 
der whatever dispensation we 
live 7 

207— What is said to be needful 
to prove the truth of divine I 
revelation most effectually 7 1 


Page. 

What science is of most im¬ 
portance 7 

208—Strictly speaking, what 
does the civil law signify 7 
Whence did the Romans ob¬ 
tain their laws 7 What was 
called the body of the civil 
law? With what law is it 
most important we should be 
acquainted ? Who defined 
the law of nature to be “ the 
knowledge of right and wrong 
among men” ? 

210—Who is said to be the great 
master of physicians ? With 
what book should theologians 
be most conversant ? 

213— How are all mankind 
taught to speak their common 
tongue ? What is grammar 7 
Rhetoric? Mention the first 
part of rhetoric. The second. 
The third. 

214— W T hat rules may be peru¬ 
sed and learned with great 
advantage ? What will do 
more to make an orator than 
all the rules of art ? 

215— What is the business of 
divines ? How should the 
understanding be convinced ? 
When that is done what mo¬ 
tives should be used ? How 
may the world be restored to 
virtue and happiness ? 

216— Mention the first reason 
for reading poetry. The se¬ 
cond. What is said of the 
lyric ode ? 

217— Mention a third reason for 
reading poetry ? 

218— What is here said of Pope? 
Mention a fourth reason for 
reading poetry. 

219— What is here said of wri 
ting poetry ? What is the 
meaning of muse 7 What is 
necessary to enable us to read 
history to advantage ? 

220— What is criticism ? Wha 
should all critics remember ? 






PART ri 


INTRODUCTION. 

Page. 

221—What has been the chief 
design of the first part of this 
book 7 What is to be consid¬ 
ered in the second part 7 Do 
those who hoard up their in¬ 
tellectual treasures enjoy the 
greatest advantage their pos¬ 
session is capable of yielding 7 
How may intellectual treas¬ 
ures be made to glitter 7 Men¬ 
tion the two chief ways of 
conveying knowledge to oth¬ 
ers. 

CHAPTER I. • 

223—Who is generally best pre¬ 
pared to teach 7 Are all good 
scholars successful instruc¬ 
tors'? Why must a competent 
teacher have a good command 
of language 7 What is said 
of the disposition of the teach¬ 
er 7 

225— What is here said of his¬ 
torical remarks, and of joining 
profit and pleasure 7 

226— What should be the style 
of instructors 7 What is here 
said of questioning learners 7 

227— To what should teachers 
accommodate themselves 7 
What is here said of curiosi- 


Page. 

ty 7 Of commendatory words T 

228— What course should be 
pursued with positive and pre¬ 
suming pupils 7 What should 
the teacher watch 7 How 
should he strive to instil know¬ 
ledge into the minds of his 
pupils'? What faculties of 
the mind should the teacher 
endeavor to call into exercise 7 
Wtfat of uncommon occur¬ 
rences 7 

229— How may the affections 
and attention of pupils be se¬ 
cured 7 


CHAPTER II. 

229— Of what does this chapter 
treat 7 What style is most fit 
and useful for instruction 7 

230— What is the first error of 
style to be avoided 7 The 
second 7 What is said of 
learned terms 7 What of the 
lovers of geometry and astron¬ 
omy 7 

231— Mention a third error to be 
avoided. A fourth. Fifth. 

232— A sixth. What is the first 
method mentioned for acquir¬ 
ing a perspicuity of style suit¬ 
able for instruction 7 The 
second 7 





300 


QUESTIONS. 


CHAPTER III. 

Page. 

233— The third ? 

234— The fourth ? Fifth ? Sixth 7 

235— Of what should we divest 
ourselves in order to promote 
truth 7 What should we seek 
to acquire 7 What is the first 
thing to be observed ? 

236— The second ? The third 7 
What must be flattered 7 
Why ? 

237— What should we always 
remember? Why should we 
set a constant watch over our¬ 
selves? To what is human 
nature likened? What does 
a wrathful spirit beget in oth¬ 
ers? How should we treat 
opponents 7 Why is there so 
little success in convincing 
disputants 7 

238— May we reasonably hope 
to convince others of their 
mistakes or errors by persecu¬ 
tion or severe usage ? Can 
men believe what they will ? 
Mention the sixth direction to 
be observed in convincing oth¬ 
ers of any truth. The seventh. 
The eighth. 

239— The ninth. 

240— The tenth. What is the 
substance of the first conclu¬ 
ding remark? 

241— Of the second ? 


CHAPTER IV. 

242— Of what does this chapter 
treat ? From what sources do 
we derive our sentiments and 
belief? To what head may 
these influences be reduced 7 

243— What is frequently a hin¬ 
drance to learners? Why? 
Has human authority any cer¬ 
tain and undoubted claim to 
truth? What ancient and 
long established doctrine was 
refuted by Sir Isaac Newton ? 


Page. 

What is here said of the 
poems of Homer and Virgil ? 

244— What would furnish a 
poem of just and glorious 
scenes ? What must we do 
in many cases in order to find 
out the truth ? What is here 
said of three eminent cases of 
authority? What is the case 
first mentioned ? 

245— Are children bound to adopt 
all the opinions of their pa¬ 
rents ? 

246— Is any individual or society 
commissioned with authority 
to dictate opinions to others of 
mature years ? In what cases 
may we be justly charged 
with criminal sloth? Men¬ 
tion a second case of author¬ 
ity which must govern our as¬ 
sent? 

247— What is this usually call 
ed? When should testimony 
operate most forcibly on our 
minds ? Should we readily 
yield our assent to the most 
forcible testimony without 
fairly examining its claims to 
credibility ? 

248— Mention a third case where¬ 
in authority must govern us. 
Of whom is this properly thfc 
authority ? When are all man 
kind bound to receive the doc¬ 
trines of divine revelation? 
Has God ever given any reve 
lations which are contrary to 
the dictates of reason ? 

249— Mention, again, the three 
cases wherein authority must 
determine our sentiments. 

250— What is the first case in 
which we should pay great 
deference to the authority and 
sentiments of others ? The 
second? Third? Fourth? 
Fifth ? 

251— Under what circumstances 
should we follow probabili* 
ties? 



QUESTIONS. 


301 


CHAPTER V. 

Page. 

251—Why is it so difficult to 
convince others of common 
mistakes, or to persuade them 
to assent to plain and obvious 
truths 7 

852—What is the firsts method 
to be practised in order to 
convince those whose preju¬ 
dices are strong 1 

253— The second ? 

254— What were the principles 
of the Peripatetics 7 What 
was the belief of the Platon- 
ists 7 How may these be¬ 
lievers in substantial forms 
and a universal soul, be led to 
give up their notions ? How 
may a person be convinced of 
his error, who is fully per¬ 
suaded there is nothing but 
what has length, breadth, and 
thickness 7 

256—Why may we ever dis¬ 
pense with the rule which 
requires different ideas to be 
expressed by different words? 
What is the third method to 
be practised ? 

CHAPTER VL 

260—Mention the principal ideas 
advanced in the first section 
of this chapter. 

265—What are the chief ideas 
advanced in the second sec¬ 
tion 7 

267—What ideas are advanced 
in section third 7 

CHAPTER VII. 

278—Of what should every wri¬ 
ter observe a just medium ? 


Page. 

What will teach us when to 
explain, define, &c. ? 

273— What rule of Horace is 
here given ? 

274— On what should the study, 
time, andjabor of every wri¬ 
ter be chiefly employed 7 
What is here said of consult¬ 
ing the opinions of others, 
and reviewing our own pro¬ 
ductions 7 

276—How may we obtain hints 
for improving our own wri¬ 
tings 7 

CHAPTER VIII. 

276— What should be the first 
thing done by a good writer on 
any controverted subject 7 
The second 7 The third ? 
What will be the course of an 
able opponent 7 

277— If the first writer answers 
his opponent in an able man¬ 
ner, what may the reader gen¬ 
erally presume 1 What is 
usually the effect of greatly 
prolonged controversies ? 

278— What exception is here 
given 7 Substance of note 7 

279— How should the sincere 
searcher for truth survey 
every argument 1 What is 
the best way to try the force 
of arguments which are 
brought against our opinions 7 
What if we find arguments 
which we are not able to an¬ 
swer 7 

280— What is here said of Vola- 
tilis? 


, / 













* 


















. 









■ 












~ ^ 4 ' v . 


.. 




































. 
































. - - 




{ 





















































\ 


■ « 




















































































, s 
























































*r 







































* 

























































•* 




* - :* 













































% 

























































































VALUABLE SCHOOL i 

PUBLISHED BY A. 

51 JOHN-ST REE » 

DAVIES’ SYSTEM OP MATHEMATICS. 

ELEMENTARY COURSE. 

DAVIES’ PRIMARY TABLE-BOOK. 

DAVIES’ INTELLECTUAL ARITHMETIC. 

DAVIES’ SCHOOL ARITHMETIC. (Key se* 

DAVIES’ UNIVERSITY ARITHMETIC. 

DAVIES’ ELEMENTARY ALGEBRA. 

DAVIES’ ELEMENTARY GEOMETRY. 

DAVIES’ PRACTICAL GEOMETRY AND MENSURATION. 

advanced course. 

DAVIES’ BOURDON’S ALGEBRA. 

DAVIES’ LEGENDRE’S GEOMETRY & TRIGONOMETRY. 
DAVIES’ ELEMENTS OF SURVEYING. 

DAVIES’ ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY. 

DAVIES’ DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS. 
DAVIES’ DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY. 

DAVIES’ SHADES, SHADOWS, & LINEAR PERSPECTIVE 

PARKER’S FIRST LESSONS IN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 
PARKER’S COMPENDIUM OF SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. 
GILLESPIE’S MANUAL OF ROADS AND RAIL-ROADS. 
BARNARD ON SCHOQL-HOUSE ARCHITECTURE. 
ALISON’S HISTORY OF EUROPE. Abridged by Gould. 
WILLARD’S UNIVERSAL HISTORY. In Perspective 
WILLARD’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Wit* 
Maps and Engravings. i voi. 8vo. 

WILLARD’S SCHOOL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
HOMER’S ILIAD. Translated bv Pope. ! voi. 32mo, 
FULTON Be EASTMAN’S PRINCIPLES OF PENMANSHIP. 
FULTON fc EASTMAN’S BOOK-KEEPING: Single Entry. 
CLARK’S NEW ENGLISH GRAMMAR. I voi. 12mo 
COLTON’S GREEK READER. 1 voi. 8vo. 

FOLYMIGRIAN NEW TESTAMENT. With Maps, Ac. 32ino 


MANSFIELD’S LIFE OF GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT. 
MANSFIELD’S HISTORY OF THE MEXICAN WAR. 
COLTON’S LIFE AND TIMES OF HENRY CLAY. 2vols.8vo 


KINGSLEY’S MUSICAL WORKS, viz: 

HARr OK DAVID—YOUNG LADIt.s’ HARP— A. JUVENILE CHOIR 
























